Conformity

Imagine if Tennessee required private schools to teach Creationism, that homosexuality is a sin, and if you enrolled your kids in schools that didn't teach those things, the state would take your kids away. But this account is just the other direction, so I expect progressive sorts will back this up:

Fifteen Christian families from a tiny community of only about 1,300 people are making plans to leave their homes and work behind so that their children will not be forced by the Canadian government to attend "sanctioned" schools where evolution is taught.

A report in the Vancouver Sun said provincial officials have threatened the families with legal action, including the potential loss of their children to state control, if they do not abide by the mandatory education curriculum.

But leaders of the Mennonite families say they'll leave Quebec before giving up their children to the state indoctrination.

...

The Mennonites, whose forefathers broke away from the reforms of Martin Luther because they were not radical enough and adopted several distinctive practices including adult baptism, established their own school in the community a few years after they arrived. Last year eight children were enrolled in grades 1-7, and this year 11 students were expected.

Children are taught reading, writing, math, science, geography, social sciences and music, as well as English and French.

But they didn't use the government-mandated curriculum that includes the teachings of evolution, and other subjects to which parents objected. So authorities warned the parents they would face legal proceedings if their children were not enrolled in "sanctioned" schools this fall.

Goossen said the 30 parents and children in families who would be endangered will move immediately; the rest of the group will follow shortly later.

Officials said in addition to the issue of the curriculum, the teacher at the Mennonite school was not "certified."

"To do that, we would have to send teachers to schools we don't want to send our children to," Goossen said.

"We don't agree with the emphasis on evolution, which we consider false; we don't like the morality standards; and we don't like the acceptance of alternative lifestyles," he said.

There's a few things about Mennonite beliefs that I don't agree with--for example, their pacifism. (Unlike progressives, however, they aren't prepared to send out government agents with guns to force their pacifism on others.)

I also think that it puts kids at a terrible disadvantage if they don't learn about evolution. For all the evidence that evolution is a bit oversold by its priests, it is a good operating model for understanding biology, and you can't seriously criticize a theory that you don't fully understand.

There is also a pretty strong argument that a modern society can't operate if large fractions of the population aren't receiving some minimal level of education, and this is perhaps a good argument for requiring that parents get their kids educated. In a fair number of big cities, you can see the consequences of this, where the combination of destructive subcultures and public schools that don't work produce large populations of high school graduates who can barely read--and a fair number who can't read at all.

Still, when the government threatens to take your children because you won't put them in public schools, or requires them to attend private schools that teach a particular curriculum, this is totalitarianism--and far more dangerous than a tiny minority of dissenters who won't go along with the totalitarian program.

The KKK relied on this totalitarian technique when it persuaded Oregon to pass a ban on private schooling early in the 20th century. Fortunately, those evil strict constructionists on the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the law in Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), relying on the precedent in Meyer v. Nebraska (1923), which struck down a Nebraska law that prohibited teaching children in languages other than English. The decision recognized that parent have a right to decide whom to employ to teach their children--and in what language--and this statute violated the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Canada has some very strong totalitarian tendencies. Doubtless this is why progressive sorts worship it so strongly.