Social justice and legal experts are to gather today in Richmond to plan a new Grade 12 course that will bring formal lessons about sexual orientation and gender issues into B.C. schools for the first time.

The two-day meeting, organized by the B.C. Education Ministry, is expected to include representatives from the RCMP, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and the Law Courts Education Society as well as trustees, principals, superintendents and members of the B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils.

The new course, called Social Justice 12, is to be piloted next September in selected schools and available more widely the following year as an elective course. Its creation was promised by government as part of a deal signed with same-sex couple Peter and Murray Corren to make the curriculum more inclusive of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered issues.

The Correns said earlier the meeting is intended to make broad plans for the course but participants will not write the curriculum. The B.C. Teachers' Federation has invited its members to apply by Sept. 29 to do that work along with ministry officials.

In an interview Sunday, the Correns said they will attend today's meeting but didn't want to talk about it or their agreement with government, which has sparked controversy recently and has been hotly opposed by a group called Concerned Parents of B.C.

"We just keep on going over the same ground and responding to the rhetoric of the opponents. We're not moving the agenda forward," Peter Corren said. "Nobody's listening on the other side."

Brian Roodnick, spokesman for Concerned Parents of B.C., said Sunday his group was not invited to today's meeting. "We don't have any voice in that at all," he said. "That's annoying."

What he says is even more troubling is that there is no indication that Social Justice 12, a course intended to examine discrimination based on sexual orientation, race, ethnicity and gender, will address religious discrimination. "What about anti-Semitism? What about Islam? Don't they deserve social justice and a voice in this?"

Social justice is defined in Canada by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees equality for everyone regardless of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability, he noted, adding that Social Justice 12 should address all those concerns.

If schools are going to teach about sexual orientation, they should also tell students that some religions believe homosexuality is morally wrong, he said. "[Social Justice 12] has to reflect accurately and fairly all these different points of view . . . I don't want it to be written by only a few groups because then it'll be propaganda," said Roodnick, who teaches in a Vancouver independent school.

The agreement with the government also allows the Correns to have a say in new guidelines that will be used in future to review all K-12 curriculum to ensure it includes references to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered issues. The deal ended a human rights complaint that the Correns filed several years ago and was about to go to a public hearing.

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