Attacking faith-based institutions for upholding codes of conduct ignores the Charter, violates the spirit of pluralism, and risks undermining religious freedom, argues lawyer Barry W. Bussey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CBC News\n\u201cGo Public\u201d ran a story recently about the \u201cdark secret\u201d of religious schools.\nInitially, the story got a lot of attention, but was then swept away as the\nSNC-Lavalin scandal took on new life with Minister Jane Philpott\u2019s resignation\nfrom the federal cabinet. Nevertheless, the \u201cdark secret\u201d of the Surrey\nChristian School in B.C. managed to ignite a social media frenzy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thousands\nof Canadians took umbrage at the \u201cdiscriminatory\u201d nature of religious schools\nreceiving government money while requiring teachers and staff abide by the\nschools\u2019 code of conduct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three\npoints come to mind that need to be addressed. First, this is not a \u201cdark\u201d\nsecret; second, this is not a \u201csecret;\u201d finally, the government funding\nargument is a red herring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nnotion of exposing a \u201cdark\u201d secret suggests there is something sinister about a\nreligious community establishing a school in accordance with its religious\nteachings. One cannot help but notice the unease \u2013 even outright aversion \u2013 expressed\nby many commentators against Christian institutions. Those of us who have\ncommitted our lives to working in the Christian charitable sector have no\nchoice but to develop a thick skin as we continue to minister. Indeed, given\nour faith\u2019s high expectations, it is hardly surprising that, when we fail, we\nare harshly judged not only by ourselves but by the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is\nsimply untrue, however, to imply that Christian schools are \u201cdark\u201d because they\nexpect staff to abide by the contracts they voluntarily sign. Rather than dark,\nit is luminescent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read\nmore<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Attacking faith-based institutions for upholding codes of conduct ignores the Charter, violates the spirit of pluralism, and risks undermining religious freedom, argues lawyer Barry W. Bussey. CBC News \u201cGo Public\u201d ran a story recently about the \u201cdark secret\u201d of religious schools. Initially, the story got a lot of attention, but… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ts_fic_featured_image_caption":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[137],"tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-28173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28173"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=28173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}