Dear Editor:
Re: Punishing Dissent in the Classic Age-old Pattern, Nov. 3 This Just In opinion column.
The last few months have shown us that dinosaurs come in many forms. One particular stegosaurus runs free in our local newspaper in the form of columnist Trevor Lautens who recently hyperventilated on the adverse affects of SOGI 123 curriculum on the minds of our tiny children. “Kids of five shouldn’t be burdened with such a question. Let children be children.” And the innocuous question that had him holding forth: “What is a Family?” on a pro-SOGI heading.
It is clear that Mr. Lautens inhabits a universe far different from mine and that the only children he knows can afford the cocooned privilege of conservatism and ignorance. How lucky for them! My child attends kindergarten and came home to us from foster care. To him and too many other small persons on the North Shore, “family” remains a very loaded term. It is profoundly useful for these little ones – and some grownups – to know that there are many different kinds of families and people who live and love differently. It teaches them about a world that is indigenized, gender inclusive and loving. What is wrong with that learning? Might it not lead to better outcomes than what we have inherited? I am neither socially nor otherwise enlightened, but reading Mr. Lautens’ very enjoyable columns I sense that here is an opinion-monger who is trying to preserve the deeply entrenched and conservative conformity that is the last dwindling bastion of the white upper-middle class man. I wish him much luck with that failing enterprise.
Meghna Haldar
North Vancouver
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