Canada's largest newspaper
One school system should satisfy all
Opinion
The Toronto Star, Feb. 2, 2005
Response letter to "Our kids deserve equality" opinion Jan. 31.
"Equalizing" the school system by awarding government funding to religious schools is as ridiculous as it is impractical. Such a policy is not only doomed to fail, it's just plain wrong. Where exactly would Archbishop Sotirios draw the line with regards to religious funding? How big does a religion have to be to receive government dollars? What of minor religions, super-cults, or non-religious secular humanists, who could all legitimately accuse the government of being marginalized?
Simply stating that this funding will not impact the public system does not make it so. Every dollar given to the Catholic school system is a dollar that could not be spent improving the public one.
The separation of church and state is a crucial corollary of the freedom of religion. It confounds me that many religionists fail to understand that it is this very concept that grants them the liberty to believe and preach what they will.
The writers of this piece got only one thing right, the title: Our kids deserve equality. And to be truly equal, we must be able to learn and co-exist in a secular environment where our rights and freedoms are protected. It is not the government's place to espouse any one religion, nor is it practical or even beneficial to support all belief systems. There should be only one educational system funded by the people, and that is the public one.
Mark Jaggassar, Toronto
3 in 4 B.C. boys on street sexually exploited by women
VANCOUVER - Canada's largest study into the sexual exploitation of street kids and runaways has shattered some myths about who the abusers might be - with the most surprising finding being that many are women seeking sex with young males.
"Some youth in each gender were exploited by women with more than three out of four (79 per cent) sexually exploited males reporting exchanging sex for money or goods with a female," said Elizabeth Saewyc, associate professor of nursing at the University of British Columbia and principal investigator for the study conducted by Vancouver's McCreary Centre Society.
"I must admit it wasn't something we were expecting."
Up to 64,000 women in UK 'are child-sex offenders'
After Plymouth case shocked the nation, police say number of women abusing children
The Guardian UK and The Observer
4 October 2009
Researchers from the Lucy Faithfull Foundation (LFF), a child protection charity that deals with British female sex offenders, said its studies confirmed that a "fair proportion" of child abusers were women. Donald Findlater, director of research and development, said results indicated that up to 20% of a conservative estimate of 320,000 suspected UK paedophiles were women.
Female Teacher Charged With Sex Assault on Seventh-Grade Boy
Associated Press / Fox News
MORRISTOWN, N.J. — A 35-year-old seventh-grade teacher was charged with having sex with one of her students at least 20 times at the teacher's home.
Jodi Thorp, 35, surrendered to authorities Monday on charges of aggravated sexual assault, aggravated sexual contact and endangering the welfare of a child. Prosecutors claim she had sex with the boy at her Mendham home between June 2001 and September 2002. The boy is now 15.
Mother confesses to sex with sons
Had intercourse with 2 teenagers
Pleads guilty to incest charges
A Kitchener woman has pleaded guilty to having sexual intercourse with her two teenage sons on separate occasions.