Tax dollars support school teaching polygamy
A1 / FRONT
Daphne
Bramham
There's a publicly
funded school in B.C. that turns
out
students
who believe that polygamy is a sacred
commandment from God,
that women can only enter heaven at the invitation of their
polygamous husbands, and that brown-skinned people are descendants
of Satan.
It's called Bountiful Elementary-Secondary.
It's run by
the
Fundamentalist
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints and for
nearly two decades, B.C. taxpayers have supported it with grants.
Last year, the grant was $460,826. The previous year -- before
a
factional
split resulted in 89 kids being taken out of
that school
and put into a new school called Mormon Hills -- it was $623,686.
The new school is controlled by Winston
Blackmore, the
former
bishop
of
prophet, Warren
Jeffs
.
Jeffs
now controls
its
spiritual adviser.
Mormon Hills has 131 students and now it too
is eligible under
the
amount the government pays for children attending public schools.
The underlying philosophy taught at both
schools is obedience
to
the
church's leaders, belief that men must have three
or more wives
and as many children as possible to enter heaven, that the role of
women and girls is only to serve men. The fundamentalist Mormons
are
also
taught to accept that the leaders will determine
not only who
will marry, but also what level of education each child may complete
and what job each person may hold.
"In
brides
," says Audrey Vance, the co-chairwoman of
a Creston-based
group called Altering Destiny Through Education. "It's very,
very
sad
for children. It's child abuse."
The group wants the government to stop
funding FLDS schools.
Vance -- a former school trustee -- admits
initially having
doubts
about
whether cutting funding would help the children.
But she
says
ex
-concubines have convinced her that even
home-schooling would be
better, because the brainwashing may not be so complete away from
the peer pressure of school.
"The girls have no access to
education," says Debbie Palmer,
who
left
the colony in 1988 with her eight children.
"They
were
graduating
people [from Creston high school] in 1988,
but by 1998
girls usually were not getting past Grade 7 and rarely past Grade
9."
Even the boys rarely get to go beyond Grade
9, says Palmer,
who
still
has many relatives living there. They're ordered
to go to
work
for
one of Winston
Blackmore's
companies or a company owned by the
church's United Effort Plan trust.
Both Palmer and Vance's group believe that
ending polygamy,
abuse
and
exploitation can only happen through education. As
Palmer says
,
"
The children have to be able to make
choices."
They got support this week from trustees in
the
Bulkley
Valley, who
demanded that the government stop funding the school immediately and
take steps to ensure that the "exploitation and manipulation of
these children is stopped immediately."
Trustee Bob Haslett pointed out that the
ministry's own
enrolment
figures
indicate a steep drop-off in students between
elementary and
secondary school. Of the 136 children registered this year, 105
are
in
kindergarten to Grade 7. Only 31 are in Grades 8 to
10.
"If any public school in B.C. had a
comparable drop-out
rate
between
elementary and secondary, the ministry would
replace the
board in a heartbeat," Haslett says.
The trustees sent letters to Education
Minister Tom Christensen
,
Premier
Gordon Campbell, Attorney-General Geoff Plant,
and Christy
Clark, the minister for children and families, expressing deep
concern "that these children are not receiving a proper education,
are being taught material not consistent with the B.C. curriculum
and are being sexually exploited and abused under the guise of
religious instruction."
The education ministry says the most recent
inspection, done
within
the
last few months, turned up nothing to indicate
grants should not
be given next year.
But perhaps there's something wrong with the
biennial
,
by
-appointment-only inspections, which last about two
hours.
The inspectors' checklist includes a section
on "
school
philosophy
," but it includes financial audits,
reviewing school
policies on student safety and student records. Inspectors don't
ask
what
values or ideas are taught beyond the provincial
curriculum.
And they aren't required to go into the classrooms, only to
review
sample
course outlines.
Many of the 356 children currently attending
Hills
will become fifth- and sixth-generation polygamists,
with all
the baggage that carries -- child brides married to middle-aged
husbands, boys being excommunicated to create the demographic
imbalance, a whole community brainwashed to believe they have no
individual rights and no free will.
FLDS leaders often quote the Constitution's
guarantee of
religious
freedom
as their protection to
practise
polygamy. But what they
and
successive
B.C. governments have neglected is the fact
that children
have rights too.
Children have a constitutional guarantee of
equality,
including
equal
access to a decent education, regardless of
where they live
and what their parents believe.
For nearly two decades, the B.C. government
has supported
school
and shirked its responsibility to protect the
rights of
dbramham@png.canwest.com
The Vancouver Sun 2004