The addition of the words “sexual orientation” to Alberta’s human rights legislation may seem like a positive development that moves Alberta decisively into the next century, but other aspects of Bill 44 move us centuries back again.We have all benefited because of the 1998 Vriend Supreme Court case that ordered Alberta to include “sexual orientation” in its human rights legislation. So, including “sexual orientation” in the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination is long overdue.But the extra and unneeded addition of a parental opt-out clause to our human rights legislation is very troubling. Let’s face it, Bill 44 seems designed specifically to censor discussion of homosexuality.Media reports suggest that the opt-out clause was added to place limits on discussions and educational content regarding sexual orientation in schools as a trade-off for finally enshrining gay rights. It does so by requiring schools to give advance notice about “courses of study, educational programs or instructional materials, or instruction or exercises,… that include subject-matter that deals primarily and explicitly with religion, human sexuality or sexual orientation.” And this provision gives parents the right to pull their children from such classes “without academic penalty.”The Alberta government has amended Bill 44 to exclude “incidental or indirect references” to the three scary topics but don’t be fooled. Although we don’t know how the courts will interpret the wording, the intent of the section is clear: to put limits on freedom of speech regarding discussion about homosexuality in schools.The Bill was drafted without public consultation, and there was no groundswell of public demand for an opt-out clause. No other province has a similar section in its human rights code. The Alberta Teachers Association and the school boards—who often agree on little—say that the opt-out is not required in human rights law and that existing opt-out policies concerning human sexuality and religious instruction are in place and working well.So why is the opt-out clause needed in the Human Rights Act, and needing to be backed by the force of the Human Rights commission? The source of this Bill is an issue largely overlooked by the press. However, Paula Simons gives us a huge clue in her article in the Edmonton Journal that pointed the public toward a speech given to the World Congress of Families in 1999 by Ted Morton—now Minister of Sustainable Resource Development and second-place finisher for the 2006 Tory leadership race. He said ten years ago:“There is another stream of modernity - represented primarily by the gender feminists and gay rights movement - that target the natural family as public enemy number one. According to the feminist-gay gospel, the great evils of this world are sexism and homophobia, and their breeding ground is the traditional family. Hence, the gay-feminist project has become a social engineering project - to use the coercive power of the state to undermine the existing family and to reconstruct in its place their gender-equal utopias.”Minister Morton clearly supports the goals of the World Congress of Families “to defend the family and to guide public policy and cultural norms.” He goes on to say that,“To avoid the soft-despotism of New Egalitarians [the gay-feminists], we must make enlightened family policy a cornerstone of the democratic state....We can do this in two ways. The first is to persuade our governments to require a ’family impact’ statement for every new policy or law that is being considered. Before legislation is voted on, there should be an investigation and written report that assesses its impact - positive, negative or neutral - on the following aspects of family life…[including] parental rights and responsibilities--especially the right to educate their children in the moral and spiritual traditions of their choice.”The opt-out clause has been reported as a trade-off between 2 sides of a divided caucus. Whether it is or not, is largely moot, we’re still stuck with a Bill that takes leaps and bounds backwards. Arguments, such as Morton’s, to enshrine parental rights are arguably a means to limit other rights. The emphasis on so-called “family values” as protection from the “gay-feminist” agenda of equality and acceptance is frightening. Bill 44 is a first step to limit rights, not an action to give equal rights to all.The impacts of Bill 44 are uncertain, but we do know that the wording of the opt-out is broad and vague and open to legal interpretation. Unfortunately, the opt-out provision will have the force of the human rights commission behind it.The parents inclined to use the legislation and the corresponding threat of human rights complaints to silence discussion of whatever they find “objectionable” will likely be concerned about topics related to homosexuality. This includes gay marriage which, after all, is legal in Canada. So we may see a teacher face legal sanction for teaching about what is actually legal in Canada! Given the choking effect of Bill 44 on the curriculum and on teachers’ willingness to address controversial issues, lessons thought to deal with “religion, human sexuality, or sexual orientation” may be wiped out of schools.Those who think that every school lesson affects their “values” will now be able to interfere with a school’s content in every way they can. It is possible that Ted Morton’s demand for a “family impact” statement for every new policy or law may make its way into Alberta’s education system for every new material, course and discussion in the schools. Thus the big chill quietly begins.As Premier Stelmach stated, students could be exempted from lessons dealing with evolution. History or literature dealing with “religion” or “human sexuality” will be fair game too.Teachers, administrators, school boards, and even the Minister of Education could face human rights complaints when schools inevitably fail to provide advance notice to parents about “objectionable” material. How, after all, are the schools supposed to anticipate the cause of every possible objection?Naturally, the schools will react by trying to avoid complaints in any way they can: Bill 44 will have a serious withering effect on teachers, administrators and classrooms. Most importantly, it will harm students by severely limiting the quality and breadth of their education.Bill 44 will have other chilling effects too: it has the potential to move gay and lesbian teachers and students back into the closet. It invites censorship of educational materials for gay and lesbian students. The threat of human rights complaints could now be used to smother acceptance of diversity in Alberta schools.We are being sold that Bill 44 was tweaked to protect “parent’s rights,” but the real impact just might be to curtail discussion of any topic “gay” and to forward a culture that does not fully accept diversity, especially gay and lesbian people. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. In this case, the future may prove that we were not vigilant enough. Bill 44 is a great loss for the gay community in Alberta. The price of our future may be refocusing our efforts back toward vigilance of future rights battles to come.