News Release: ‘Out In Schools’ update; unanswered questions, boy using girls’ washroom

Culture Guard news release
For immediate release
October  5, 2011

‘Out In Schools’ update: unanswered questions, boy using girls’ washroom

It looks like OUT IN SCHOOLS (“OIS”) is in damage control mode.

“Since Culture Guard’s first ‘Pornogate’ news release revealed that the program has exposed children to graphic pornography and games, there’s been considerable “editing” on the OIS website!” says Culture Guard president Kari Simpson.

In addition, Culture Guard has learned that a teenage boy at a Burnaby school—who claims he is “transgendered”—insists on using girls’ washrooms. Girls at his school say they don’t feel safe, and some Muslim girls (whose faith says males must not see their uncovered hair) right’s have been violated by his use of the girls washroom while they were using their facility.

The OIS website used to say the program had been submitted to the Ministry of Education for approval; that claim has recently been taken off the website.

The name of Romi Chandra (spouse of NDP MLA and sex activist Spencer Chandra Herbert), the author of the OIS “teachers’ guide,” has also recently been eliminated from the OIS website.

Drew Dennis and Ross Johnstone
Drew Dennis and Ross Johnstone
Few interviews have been granted by OIS facilitator Ross Johnstone or by Drew Dennis, Executive Director for OUT ON SCREEN, the “society” that acts as the umbrella organization for both OIS and the Queer Film Festival.  But neither man has denied Culture Guard’s factual assertions that the OIS program lures students and exposes them to graphic homosexual pornography.

Ross Johnstone did offer one comforting assurance in his interview with the BC Catholic newspaper: “Alcohol is not served…”

TELUS, one of the major corporate funders of OIS, has begun a damage control campaign.  The telecommunications giant has sent letters to individuals who protested TELUS’s financial support for an organization that uses deception to manipulate parents, students and other educational stakeholders.

Jill Schnarr, Vice President of Community Affairs for TELUS, was the signatory on letters passed on to Culture Guard by active citizens.  Ms. Schnarr went so far as to contact one individual by phone, and assured him that TELUS had ceased funding the OUT IN SCHOOLS program. However, while the “TELUS” logo has been removed from the list of supporters on the OIS website, CAYA—TELUS’ pro-gay retail division—is featured in its place.

The CAYA site still says proudly that TELUS is still funding and supporting the OIS program, which lures and grooms children with political propaganda, sex activism and graphic gay porn.

Kari Simpson, President of Culture Guard, says she will ask the organization’s fast-growing constituency—which was easily mobilized in 2001 to help obliterate the NDP, when it declared war on BC’s schools (click here for the “Most Dangerous Woman in BC” article)—to begin a letter-writing campaign to PavCo, asking them rethink any consideration of awarding TELUS naming rights to the revamped BC Place Stadium.

Simpson says, “I can forgive TELUS for its initial support of OIS, even though it was negligent not to do its due diligence; but when they start playing name games to mislead their own subscribers, that’s ethically wrong and corporately irresponsible.  Any corporation funding a program after they’ve been told it betrays the trust of parents and taxpayers, and exposes children to pornography, has earned the contempt of consumers, the government, the business community and the public.”

Mrs. Simpson has written a letter to Ross Johnstone asking 47 hard questions that she says should have been asked by school boards and responsible corporate citizens before they even touched the OIS program.

For example, Simpson states in her letter that Nancy Walt, for the Ministry of Education, has stated in writing that the Ministry of Education has not received any kind of request from OIS for approval. But until recently, the OIS website stated that Ministry approval had been requested. “How can this be?” she asks Mr. Johnstone. “Is Ms. Walt, or someone else, lying?”

Question 4 of her letter asks: “Have you falsely asserted to sponsors and/or funders that this resource had in fact been sent for approval to the Ministry of Education?”

In her complaint to the Vancouver Police Department, Mrs. Simpson pointed out that if funders were deceived to obtain funds under false pretenses that would constitute a violation under the Criminal Code. [Update: Click here to see how the complaint was rejected by the receiving officer!]

Referring to the “Fierce and Fabulous under-25” party to which OIS invited adolescents, Simpson tells Johnstone: “Now, you haven’t been quite honest with the media about your promotion of the H.I.M. organization—promotion that was not limited to just the reference to the youth resource link (in the teachers’ guide & website), but also included H.I.M.’s very visible participation at the party to which you invited students.

“I am familiar with the H.I.M. organization, and its graphically pornographic promotional material distributed and displayed in large poster form at public venues like the Pride Parade and the ‘Fierce and Fabulous’ party held August 12th,”  she declares.

She then asks: “Did you advise parents that their children would be exposed to graphic homosexual pornography? Did you advise the various Boards of School Trustees that students would be exposed to graphic pornography? Did you advise sponsors and funders of OIS that students would be exposed to graphic pornography?”

Simpson says many more questions need answering; but the most important one is: “How did this program and its social-sexual political agenda ever gain access to students?  It is grossly flawed and a complete violation of trust and the well-being of children, it is time for Premier Clark to demonstrate real leadership and call for a full investigation,” she said today.

=30=

Click here for the letter Simpson sent to Ross Johnstone
Click here for the Culture Guard video update.

Contact: Kari Simpson – cultureguard@gmail.com

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4 Thoughts to “News Release: ‘Out In Schools’ update; unanswered questions, boy using girls’ washroom”

  1. Claiming that an organization of luring students and exposing them to pornography (illegal) is a serious accusation, one which to this day has not been supported by any fact. If you disagree, I challenge you to provide proof, of which you have none, otherwise you would have done so already.

    I also read your letter– long-winded as it was– and I’m surprised by all the loaded questions filled with implicit assumptions of guilt. Unfortunately for you, assumed guilt is not how our justice system operates. The VPD has confirmed there is nothing criminal about Out In Schools, so I wonder if you will continue to posit that they are in fact an insidious malefactor of the “homosexual agenda”.

    I wonder even further if it is really the truth that you are seeking here or simply to disguise it with false accusations and inflammatory language.

    1. Actually, Mark, the police were satisfied only after Out In Schools took several actions to remove the pornographic links from their webpage and workbooks, which have now been reprinted. They have also redacted their false claims that their program was submitted to the Ministry of Education for review. Culture Guard has provided most of the proof online (some is not for public consumption) – much of it in the form of a detailed open letter to Ross Johnstone – so please don’t blame us if you cannot find it and/or understand it. Every action against the Out In Schools program has been validated by the Out In Schools program itself, which has backpedaled, redacted, reprinted, spun, and otherwise ducked its head into its shell – while never, ever proving or even claiming inaccuracy on our part. If you choose to not believe Culture Guard, why not believe Out In Schools, which absolutely backs up Culture Guard’s claims?

      1. I believe you may be misinformed about the concept of proof.

        The fact that you have written a letter of accusations with no actual concrete evidence to speak of (you claim that the site has since taken down all of these things, and how convenient for you) has no relation to the truth of your statements. Simply writing “they said this before, but now they aren’t saying it!” is proof of nothing. Where is the documentation, besides your letter, and the apparent absence of false claims and pornographic links?

        I find it amusing that you claim the police were satisfied only after Out In Schools took action. So they were unsatisfied before this? If they were so unsatisfied, why were there no criminal charges laid against Mr. Johnstone or any other members of OIS? Showing children pornography is child abuse, and is dealt with very seriously, as I am sure you are aware.

        We live in a country, once again, as perhaps you didn’t catch it the first time, of innocence until guilt can be proven (with real, factual evidence). This means that OIS “never, ever proving or even claiming inaccuracy on our part” is not required, though you may believe it is, in order for them to be free of the accusations you lay against them. To prove what is already fact, and expose your inaccuracy would show that OIS has any concern for what you have to falsify anyway.

        1. You really are thick, Mark Lee. And not worth the time to rebut. [Further comment added after another lame comment from Mark, who is hereby banned from this site for being a sex activist tool…] But I must say about you and so many other knee-jerk naysayers: We don’t make up this stuff out of nothing. Crimes are being committed. Agendas are being played out. Young people are dying every day as a consequence. We post our arguments and evidence. If you’re too lazy to review our already-posted evidence, if you’re too stupid to comprehend the severity of the situation, if you’re too bigoted to open your eyes and heart enough to care about these kids as much as we do, then please go someplace else to stew in your own hatred and self-destruction. We’re trying to help people. Obviously, you are not.

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