Canada's Supreme Court has recently ruled that children in Quebec cannot opt out of a public school religion class, even if their parents take issue with the curriculum.
The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, a national organization of evangelical Christians founded in 1964, was one of many organizations that intervened in the case on behalf of the parents.
"Religious freedom and the right to parental authority are robustly regarded and guaranteed in Canada," said Faye Sonier, legal counsel for the Centre for Faith and Public Life, the legal wing of EFC, in an interview with The Christian Post. "If parents have sincerely held religious beliefs and do not wish to expose their children to certain programming . that may conflict with their beliefs, their wishes should be honored."
The parents, who are listed as "L" and "J" in court documents, believed the mandatory course interfered with their child's religious upbringing. According to court documents, the parents felt children "would be exposed to a form of relativism which would interfere with their ability to pass their faith on to their children. They also maintain that exposing children to various religious facts is confusing for them."
However, the Supreme Court refused to hear the argument, believing that the parents could not adequately prove that their child would be harmed by the curriculum.
".early exposure of children to realities that differ from those in their immediate family enivronment is a fact of life in society," reads the decision. "The suggestion that exposing children to a variety of religious facts in itself infringes their religious freedom or that of their parents amounts to a rejection of the multicultural reality of Canadian society and ignores the Quebec government's obligations with regard to public education."
