New Democratic Party Leader Brian Mason says it’s shameful that Alberta had to be dragged by the courts to make this change, which has already been in place for many years in some provinces.

“They have been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century by the courts,” Mason said.

Alberta lost a high-profile court battle over this issue a decade ago and was then ordered by the Supreme Court of Canada to add sexual orientation to the human rights code.

But there’s a controversial twist to the legislation introduced Tuesday by Alberta’s Progressive Conservative government to settle this long-standing battle over gay rights.

The Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Amendment Act will also give parents the right to exclude their kids from parts of the education curriculum that they don’t agree with, including anything to do with same-sex relationships.

Premier Ed Stelmach concedes this opting-out provision could be used to pull students out of classes dealing with evolution if parents preferred their kids be taught what’s in the Bible instead.

“The parents would have the opportunity to make that choice,” said the premier. “The discussion among the caucus was that … parents would make the best choice for their children.”

Liberal human rights critic Laurie Blakeman said this threatens to fracture the system if parents start pulling their kids from classes if they don’t agree with what’s being taught.

“I think that the government has opened a huge can of worms with this,” Blakeman said in an interview.

“Do we have students graduating with the same instruction? No we won’t. We will have a complete patchwork.”

“It’s a mess.”

Health Minister Ron Liepert caught about a dozen transsexual protesters off guard when he announced that he didn’t think it was fair to strand people who had been preparing for years to have a sex change.

So 28 people who are in varying stages of the sex change procedure will get funding to finish their surgeries, while 20 others who have been paying for hormone treatments in advance of the surgery will also get government funding, said Liepert.

“It would not be right for us to say, `Well, you spent all this money, but we’re now going to change the rules,”’ the minister later told reporters.

Jamie-Lynn Garvin, 47, who has been involved in the sex change process for more than three years, was shocked by the minister’s announcement.

“It’s a $40,000 announcement for me,” said Garvin. “But I’ve heard a lot of things come out of politicians’ mouths and I don’t know if this is true or not.”

But Liepert’s motives were being interpreted in a very different light by a group preparing to file a human rights complaint Wednesday in hopes of blocking the decision in the recent Alberta budget to end funding for sex changes.

Jordenne Prescott said the Ontario government’s 1998 decision to eliminate funding for sex changes was overturned by the province’s human rights commission.

They were hoping to use this as a precedent in the Alberta human rights case. But a key factor in the Ontario ruling was the fact that people who had been preparing for a sex change were left stranded.

Liepert has now “grandfathered” most Albertans waiting for sex change procedures, so those behind the Alberta human rights complaint may no longer be able to use the Ontario ruling as a precedent.

“Essentially, it was a very smart move on his part,” said Prescott, who is among those waiting for a sex change. “It does not gut the complaint entirely, though.”

Kristopher Wells, a researcher with the Institute for Sexual Minorities Studies and Services at the University of Alberta, said the complaint will now argue that Alberta’s funding cut is simply discriminatory.

“People in the community may also seek a civil injunction against the government until the courts rule whether this was a discriminatory action or not,” said Wells.

There has also been talk in Alberta’s transgendered community of a class-action lawsuit claiming damages for the lost government funding, he said.

Liepert explained that he decided to approve additional sex-change funding after hearing media reports about the impact the cut would have on people who have spent years preparing for the procedure.

“That decision seemed to be the right one to make and I made it today,” he said.

But the minister could not say how much these additional surgeries would cost, but the price of a sex change usually ranges from $17,000 to $70,000.