More equal than thou (or why do we let Catholic school boards hold all the cards?)

So there’s a provincial election coming up and one of the issues I don’t expect any of the parties to address is the ongoing refusal of the publicly funded catholic school boards to allow GSAs in their schools. They claim that they don’t tolerate any kind of bullying and, as such, there is no need to have a club specifically focused on homophobic bullying. But events over the last several months belie that benevolent reasoning.  So let’s do a little inventory shall we?

Image from: Quick dish

• A Mississauga school banned the open display of rainbows at a student run anti-homophobia event (the kids got around it by hiding them inside cupcakes). These students were also forbidden to donate their proceeds to any charity that served LGBT youth. – Rainbows banned at Mississauga Catholic school
• Lesbian comedian Dawn Whitwell was pulled from an anti-bullying event at Bishop Marrocco-Thomas Merton Catholic School in Toronto at the last minute. She was the only queer speaker at the event, which included topics like “gender issues in partner dancing” and the pastoral care guidelines on same-sex orientation. – Toronto Catholic board blocks lesbian comedian from anti-bullying event
• Alice Anne LeMay, chair of the Halton Catholic School Board, compared GSAs to nazi groups when she defended the ban saying, “We don’t have Nazi groups either.” – Halton Catholic schools ban gay-straight alliance groups

While they say that they don’t allow any kind of bullying, their actions tell another story. Over and over again the Catholic school boards are telling queer kids that who they are is intolerable. More than that, they are telling straight kids that queer kids are fair game.  By openly refusing to reach out to potentially queer kids and provide them a safe space, the school boards are complicit in creating a toxic environment.

But that’s not really what I want to write about.  That has been said many times by many people.

I’m also not going to talk about the problems with the very existence of publicly funded Catholic schools.

No, what I want to do is ask one simple question: why is it that the freedom of religion is consistently seen as a trump card, even when to do so means violating the human rights of others?

Religion is a matter of choice, a matter of faith and association. While it is a fundamental part of life and identity for many people it is still a matter of choice.  So why is it that we consistently allow the right to hold a set of beliefs to overrule the right to be who you are free of harassment?

It is one thing to say that I have the right to belief whatever I choose and to worship accordingly. It is another thing altogether to say that I then have the right to act out those beliefs in a way that harms others. It's bad enough when we allow this to happen within the walls of the church, but when we allow it to happen in a public school it is unconscionable. These schools are publicly funded and are, as such, subject to the governance of the provincial government - a government which has mandated all public schools provide support groups for LGBT youth.

This is not about the right to worship.

Because they are publicly funded there are many students attending these schools, not for religious or ideological reasons, but because their parents believe that, for any number of reasons, their kids will get a better education.  In my neighbourhood the local public school has a terrible reputation. For this reason many of the neighbourhood kids attend the nearby Catholic school.  So given that not all of the families availing themselves of the Catholic schools are, in fact, Catholic is it reasonable to say that these schools are not required to provide adequate support and protection to queer kids because it is inconsistent with the teachings of the church? Moreover, even for those families that are Catholic, the students are not usually there by their own choice, but rather by the will of their parents. Is it then fair to deny them the opportunity to support each other in whatever way they see fit?

While I object to the Catholic churches stance on many things, homosexuality being among them, this isn’t about that.  You cannot benefit from the public purse while refusing to follow the policies set by the provincial government. The fact that our politicians refuse to tackle this issue in any meaningful way is a clear indication that the original purpose of the separate school system – to serve a marginalized and persecuted community - no longer applies. If it did, they wouldn’t all be so damn scared.