With the world’s spotlight on the It Gets Better campaign and gay teen suicides, the urgency for schools to create gay-straight alliance (GSA) groups seems obvious.
But while the Ontario Ministry of Education thinks GSAs are important, the Halton Catholic District School Board (HCDSB) takes a different view.
The HCDSB feels the groups are harmful and has issued a ban on GSAs altogether.
“We don’t have Nazi groups either,” rationalizes board chair Alice Anne LeMay. “Gay-straight alliances are banned because they are not within the teachings of the Catholic Church.”
“If a gay student requests a gay-straight alliance they would be denied,” she says flatly.
“It’s not in accordance with the teachings of the church. If they wanted to have a club outside of school, fine, just not in school.”
What to say? For a school board member of a so-called Christian school to equate the Gay Straight Alliance with Nazis is not against the teachings of the church? Truly, I'm rendered speechless.
H/T to Rob Tisinai at Box Turtle Bulletin, who says:
Thank you Alice Anne LeMay, thank you. Not everyone can make our opponents look so ridiculous in so few words.
It will be very hard for any school authority trying to make life difficult for their gay students to outdo that set of pronouncements either in terms of offensiveness or of silliness. She has hit the ball right out of the ball park. Rob Tisinai is exactly right.
ReplyDeleteI shake my head. I believe the story as written, but I can't take in that the woman said that.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why you are so surprised. There's a strong streak in the anti-gay movement that equates Nazis with gays--and a book called the "Pink Swastika" by "kill the gays in Uganda" activist Scott Lively.
ReplyDeleteReally--they don't see a difference.
Yeah, nevermind that the ACTUAL Nazis KILLED Teh Gays!
ReplyDeleteI nominate Alice Anne for a Godwin's Law Award.
Really--they don't see a difference.
ReplyDeleteIT, I know that's the thinking amongst certain people. But you'd think the woman would not be stupid enough to SAY such a thing to a reporter.
JCF, I thought Godwin's law had to long internet discussions, but perhaps the meaning has broadened. Nevermind that the Nazis killed gays. The great mass of people are ignorant of even recent history.
Do I laugh or cry? Or do I just wonder how anyone can be so stupid as to argue that a group that allows students to forge bonds across the sexual orientation lines is somehow incompatible with the teachings of the church? And people then wonder why so many LGBT people don't like "christians"!
ReplyDeleteA Roman Catholic school board member who displays such despicable bigotry and ignorance should be asked to resign immediately.
ReplyDeleteIf she isn't asked to resign it will say a great deal about the school.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, forcing her to resign for articulating the real policy would be a whitewash. I'm with Rob: more truth like this helps in the long run. It demonstrates the lack of a moral compass, for which a genital compass appears to have been substituted.
ReplyDeleteIt is appalling that a handful of Bronze-Age beliefs, divorced from any remotely accurate understanding of human biology and anthropology, to say nothing of psychology, should so dominate the thinking and practice of any institution in this day and age.
Tobias, of course it would be a whitewash if the woman were asked to resign, but that's the usual method of operation.
ReplyDeleteWhat in heaven's name is wrong with gay and straight youngsters getting together for conversation to further friendship and understanding? I suppose the worry is that the straight kids might catch gay cooties.
Excuse me, wasn't Pope Benedict XVI a member of the Hitler Youth Corps (Hitler-Jugend) as a teenager? I'd turn this whole application around and apply to organize a Hitler Youth group (as an alias for a GSA). It would be a wonderfully ironic application, noting specifically that Ratzinger had once been a member. To have the HCDSB turn down this application would create wonderful vibrations around the RC church.
ReplyDeletePfalz prophet, if only you were the pope!
ReplyDelete