ROTHENBURGER: If both sides want to protect kids, why is common ground so hard to find?
(Image: CFJC Today)
WHEN TWO SIDES square off, as they did on Columbia Street this week, one wonders about common ground.
Sometimes there isn’t any. Sometimes it’s so meagre it does nothing to bring the two sides closer together let alone resolve differences. Whether it’s freedom convoys, anti-vaxxers, the homelessness debate, drug decriminalization or so many other things, the truth (as Oscar Wilde said) is rarely pure and never simple.
So it is with the SOGI issue. SOGI stands for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. It is not a curriculum, according to official descriptions. “SOGI is a topic that can be addressed throughout many subjects and school activities…. SOGI-inclusive education is about students having conversations about the SOGI diversity in society and the importance of treating everyone with dignity and respect.”
The protests in many cities this week were against SOGI. Counter-protests were for it. Simple enough. People were exercising their freedom of expression. From there, though, it gets complicated, and I have more questions than answers on where there is or isn’t common ground.
Let’s begin with, why can’t this difference of opinion be debated on merits without accusations about motives? Is it possible there could be common ground upon which to base a conversation?
Mel Rothenburger is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.
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Fear and lack of education defeats common ground. I had the privilege to know a family whose teenager wanted, no, insisted they had to physically change gender to match their mental and emotional self. I expressed my worry that the youngster would be bullied, harassed, and ridiculed at school. The teen’s father set me strait, saying that his youngster’s peers did not do that. It is, he said, usually older people, even older teachers, who discriminate against transgender people.
As usual, young people are curious and accepting; they want to know, to learn, to understand what transgender change is all about. That’s what SOGI is for. Too bad the “old folks” can’t learn from their children. They are the ones who need the information in the SOGI curriculum, but it seems they want to live in ignorance rather than try to understand–so much easier to protest than learn and have to give up righteous notions.
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Being homosexual is not even an issue in my opinion. However it is also my opinion children should be dissuaded from getting their body rearranged chemical or surgically. And anything even remotely supporting or encouraging chemical or surgical intervention should be frown upon.
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One problem is ignorance. The protesters ought to get their facts straight before they start spouting off about the evils of SOGI. For one, gender dysphoria is real. The movement to recognise transgendered people is not driven by some liberal – left ideology. A lot has been learned over time — why not inform yourself of the facts?
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