Category: GSAs

This was another day of debate for Ontario’s Bill 13, also known as the Accepting Schools Act. You can read my coverage for the previous debate here. You can read a transcript of today’s events here.

The NDP through MPP Cheri DiNovo affirmed their support for the legislation, while re-iterating where they saw avenues for improvement. She also talked extensively about Gay-Straight Alliances. She quoted a student who felt rejected by his school administration, which had banned students from forming a GSA. She also went on to talk about statistics of suicide among LGBT youth, and the need for the support:

We want to support these students, and part of supporting these students is to support them in supporting themselves. When they say—and they don’t all say, but when they do say—that they want a gay-straight alliance in their schools, we need to be behind them.

DiNovo then spoke of the demonstrable benefits of having such support in schools:

I want to just share some quotes, and these quotes are from various groups. First of all, let’s look at Egale. Egale Canada says, “GSAs … demonstrably improve the lives of LGBTQ youth, increasing their safety and improving their self-esteem.”

By simply existing, GSAs present “students with the idea that LGBTQ identities have a place in the school, and society at large. Directly engaging LGBTQ youth and their allies within school, as well as those who are ambivalent regarding LGBTQ themes, is an excellent means towards addressing school climate, isolation, promoting social connectedness.” They cite a study in California that found gay-straight alliance presence and participation in high school to be highly correlated with decreased depression, substance abuse and lifetime suicide attempts among LGBTQ young adults.

The Progressive Conservatives through MPP John O’Toole voiced their objection to Bill 13. O’Toole suggested that passing this law would be tantamount to bullying:

I believe this document from the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association, Respecting Difference, summarizes particularly how I feel about the issue. I believe that the secular society forcing views on non-secular society is in fact bullying.

Perpetrators are being framed with the same language used to describe the victims, in an attempt to provide a sense that both positions are of equal merit. And yet, when you look at who is exercising control over the other, such illusions are quickly dispelled.

The students are seeking to form a support group. They are not preventing other students from forming a support group. They are not preventing the school’s administrators from creating a support group. They are not making bigoted decisions that negatively impact others. On the contrary, they are the recipient of such prejudice. Contrary to the MPP’s assertions, the inability for a perpetrator to infringe on the well-being of others does not make them victims.

I find it telling that the MPP quoted the Respecting Differences document, which forbids students from even speaking openly about matters of gender identity.

As Liberal MPP Glenn Murray noted:

The reason the GSAs, and not organizations for disabilities or black kids or aboriginal kids, are at the centre of this is because of our social discomfort with sexual orientation. That’s what the Hotwire—Charles McVety and a few thousand extremists are going to be out on the front lawn. They’re not here talking about kids with disabilities. They have no problem with stopping bullying against young folks who are unfortunately overweight or kids who are a little ungainly or awkward or a bit nerdy or whatever the thing is that brings on that horrible bullying.

Then taking aim at the comments made by O’Toole, Murray said:

You know, it isn’t bullying. There’s no one here that’s suggesting that we shouldn’t teach a Catholic perspective in our schools. Let me read Charles McVety, who is a person who, if you had to find the philosophical polar opposite to my world—this is what he recently said in a news article editorial he wrote. He said that Catholic teaching is defined in the document, by referring to the document Pastoral Guidelines to Assist Students of Same Sex Orientation in the 2006 CCCB statement, which the member from Durham mentioned before: “Basing itself on sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity” and a tradition that declared—he’s quoting from the bishop’s direction—“homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”

I have to say to the bishops: “You’re not allowed to do that anymore.” I’m not allowed to say to the Catholics—nor should I—or to other Christians or Muslims or Jews, that because of your faith you’re intrinsically disordered. I would never say to you that anything that goes on in your family with the person you love—can you imagine me describing a husband-and-wife relationship as inherently depraved? Can you imagine how it feels to gay and lesbian families and to our children in schools when people like Charles McVety say we’re unfit to be parents? How much do you love your children? How would you feel, as an Ontarian or as a Canadian? You feel a little less Canadian. I feel a little less welcome in my own country every time someone like that is endorsed.

He concluded by stating he hoped both the Liberal Bill 13 and the PC Bill 14 passed. There was more commentary by other MPPs, and declaration that this debate would be continued another time.

Then came the second reading for Bill 14. NDP MPP Rosario Marchese expressed her party’s support for the legislation, while PC MPP Lisa MacLeod told the audience where she thought it was better than Bill 13. More accountability and better at remediation, she said. Another Liberal, Liz Sandals, said she would support Bill 14. Other MPPs spoke up to support the private member’s bill. There was a motion to carry. With that, the PC bill passed second reading.

It seems that Glenn Murray’s observations were spot on. Because Bill 14 did not explicitly cover LGBT students, it was devoid of the opposition that has plagued the Liberal bill. Its second reading debate lasted an hour, and then it passed to the next phase for legislation. Meanwhile, Bill 13 has been dragged in second reading debates for days, with no clear end in sight.

I’m glad Bill 14 passed this stage. I’ll be more happy when Bill 13 does too.

Introduction

Yesterday was the second reading for the Accepting Schools Act (Bill 13), the anti-bullying legislation introduced by the Liberal Party of Ontario.

The provisions in the bill would create a “bullying awareness and prevention week”, grant the Minister the ability to put a policies and guidelines to deal with bullying, and also the following:

Every board shall support pupils who want to establish and lead,

(a) activities or organizations that promote gender equity;

(b) activities or organizations that promote anti-racism;

(c) activities or organizations that promote the awareness and understanding of, and respect for, people with disabilities; or

(d) activities or organizations that promote the awareness and understanding of, and respect for, people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, including organizations with the name gay-straight alliance or another name.

Unfortunately, there is a very vocal force opposing the introduction of this bill. Now I don’t pretend to fully understand those who reject this anti-bullying legislation. That said, I have tried to read the statements written by the detractors to get a better insight into their objections.

There’s a few things to take away from this opposition. First of all, it exists because the anti-bullying legislation also covers discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. If that inclusion wasn’t there, you wouldn’t have these groups make a ruckus.

To that extent, this opposition is entirely religious in nature, including not just adherents of the Catholic faith but other religions as well. This is not all that surprising since faith-based groups have historically opposed measures of acceptance for LGBT folk. Let us not forget that this bill partly owes its existence as a reaction to the much-publicized ban by Catholic schools on support groups for LGBT students.

It would be unfair to group these opponents together, though there are a few discussion points I’ve seen crop up over and over. One is the concept that in the case of students from sexual minorities, there is such a thing as just discrimination. The other is this idea that they fear the normalization of homosexuality (in other words – acceptance.) This latter notion seems ideologically-tied to the concept of the fictitious homosexual agenda, the queer equivalent of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

There’s unfortunately little middle ground here with that kind of rhetoric. One side is arguing against the acceptance of certain students as equals because of the minority to which they belong, while the other wants those same students to be treated as equals. As this anti-bullying legislation is incompatible with the continued “just” discrimination against a minority, so the religious leaders appear to be saying, it cannot be allowed to succeed.

 Bill 13: Second reading

You can read a full transcript of the second reading here. Starting the day was a petition to kill the anti-bullying bill by the religious Parents As First Educators:

To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

Whereas, as an anti-bullying measure, Bill 13 is unnecessary because Ontarians already have Bill 157; and

Whereas Bill 13 promotes radical revisions to school instruction on sex and gender that a majority of parents do not support; and

Whereas legislation is not the way to implement equity education (this should rather be addressed by teacher training, after wider parental consultation, in a way which respects the views of people of faith);

We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to vote against Bill 113.

A member for the Progressive Conservative party, meanwhile, appeared to suggest that the opposition would not support Bill 13. Or in parliamentary-speak:

We believe that Bill 14, which has been brought forward by my colleague, is the more comprehensive bill, and that’s what we’ll be supporting.

Bill 14 is the competing anti-bullying legislation tabled by the Progressive Conservative. It was introduced the same day as Bill 13, and unlike the latter, makes no reference to orientation or any other basis for discrimination, but rather focusing on acts. Education critic for the opposition, Lisa MacLeod explained why she believed her party’s bill was superior, and accused the Liberals of not negotiating in good faith with her party in coming up with a joint solution.

The PC’s bill language does nothing to confront prejudice that’s from the board-level, and so the bans on support groups for LGBT youth would continue if they succeeded in supplanting Bill 13. I do believe this omission is why they introduced the legislation – so as to protect the discriminatory policies of the Catholic schools, which their supporters see as a matter of “freedom of religion, expression and thought“.

The NDP meanwhile stated that they disagreed with the PC’s approach of placing all the blame on the bully while ignoring the environmental factors that lead to those behaviours. They backed Bill 13, but saw it as being in need of improvements.

The member speaking for the NDP, Peter Tabuns, also spoke of the GSA issue:

As contentious as they may be, there is another issue that has taken on much more profile, and that takes me to the whole question of student clubs to reduce bullying, the most contentious section of this bill—and that is because one section has to do with the formation of gay-straight alliances in schools. This is the part of the bill that helps to address two issues: cultural change and building support networks for those who are under attack.

Culture change—because when authorities recognize and respect groups that are under attack, that are subjected to abusive action, it changes the dynamic of power. When authorities show respect for girls, when authorities show respect for those who have different skin colour, show respect for those who are disabled, show respect for our gay youth, that helps to shift the culture as much as the principal of my school coming in to talk to my class when I was in grade 3. It says the ground has to move. Allowing students in schools, under the sanction of the administration, to set up clubs says to all students that those students deserve respect; that the authorities in charge of the schools and the education system believe that those students deserve respect. Allowing students in schools to set up support networks gives them the security of being together and reduces the isolation that we all know can be, literally, deadly.

He read off the provision I quoted in the introduction, and talked about how clubs dealing with gender, racism, and disability issues are in great need here in Ontario. He continued:

That takes me to the last category in this subsection of the bill: “(d) activities or organizations that promote the awareness and understanding of, and respect for, people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, including organizations with the name gay-straight alliance or another name.”

Everything that has been seen to be true for other responses to oppression based on gender, racism or ability is true when we come to sexual orientation. Yet, as you are well aware, Speaker, this is the most contentious item of the bill. We’ll explore that, I am sure, as we go further through debate and through committee.

This bill supports formation of equity-promoting groups for gay and lesbian students but does not require school boards to allow students to determine the most appropriate name for the committee. Speaker, I think that is a change that is going to be necessary, to give the students the right to determine the names of their committees. This lack runs counter to the aim of creating schools which are accepting of all students and of stopping prejudice and discrimination.

Egale Canada says “GSAs … demonstrably improve the lives of” lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and questioning “youth, increasing safety and improving their self-esteem.”

By simply existing, GSAs present students “with the idea that LGBTQ identities have a place in the school, and society at large. Directly engaging LGBTQ youth and their allies within school, as well as those who are ambivalent regarding” those “themes, is an excellent means towards addressing school climate, isolation and promoting social connectedness….”

A recent study in California found GSA presence and participation in high school to be highly correlated with decreased depression, substance abuse and lifetime suicide attempts among LGBT young adults.

Now we started off this afternoon with the member from Nepean–Carleton talking about the tragic death of Jamie Hubley. I have to say his death was not one that was so rare that we could say there was no pattern. I wish—and this is tragic to say—I wish it was that rare.

In the Toronto Star last December, Antonia Zerbisias wrote about Support Our Youth, an organization in Toronto on Sherbourne Street that supports gay youth. In her article, she talked about how children are bullied and how gay children tend to be particularly picked out for abusive treatment.

She notes in her article: “‘Numerous studies suggest that among lesbian, gay and bisexual youth, approximately 32 per cent contemplate or attempt suicide (compared to 7 per cent of all youth)’ says a recent analysis by Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.” Those are very high numbers, Speaker. Those are numbers that every person in this room should keep in mind as we debate this bill, because the simple reality is that we’re dealing with decisions that will affect life and death of our young people. Researchers and advocates say that “it’s not their sexuality that leads these kids down a suicidal path—it’s the stigma and discrimination they face in a heterosexual world…. Jamie Hubley, 15, killed himself” last fall. “Orangeville girlfriends Jeanine Blanchette, 21, and Chantal Dube, 17, were found in a wooded area in 2010, apparently after committing suicide with pills.

“In 2007, 13-year-old Shaquille Wisdom hung himself the day after he was stuffed into a garbage can at his Ajax high school. His homophobic bullies have never been outed—or punished.”

All of us have a responsibility to protect our children no matter what colour they are, what gender they are, no matter what their gender orientation. All of us in this building, in this chamber, who have power, authority and responsibility have to protect our children. Speaker, we cannot abandon children to their fate; we have to act.

Bill 13 could be enhanced by incorporating elements of the Conservatives’ anti-bullying private member’s bill. Elements around public reporting, enhanced staff training, inclusion in curriculum, alternative programming—all those need to be taken into account as we get into committee, and everything that is going to advance the protection of children in this province that is incorporated in that private member’s bill needs to be brought into the government’s bill.

This session of the Ontario parliament has 107 seats. 53 are taken up by Liberals, and another 17 by the NDP. The PC meanwhile has 37 elected members. So presumably if the issue were to come to a vote today, Bill 13 would pass even without the PC’s support.

But success is not yet assured. I’ll keep you posted.

The saga of the ban on Gay-Straight Alliances in this province’s Catholic schools continues. However, there is much cause to be optimistic.

This past November, the McGuinty government introduced Bill 13, also known as the “Accepting Schools Act.” Among the provisions in the bill is the following:

Every board shall support pupils who want to establish and lead,

(a)  activities or organizations that promote gender equity;

(b)  activities or organizations that promote anti-racism;

(c)  activities or organizations that promote the awareness and understanding of, and respect for, people with disabilities; or

(d)  activities or organizations that promote the awareness and understanding of, and respect for, people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, including organizations with the name gay-straight alliance or another name.

In other words, if this passes, Catholic boards would no longer be able to block support groups for queer students. If you want a reminder as to why Catholic representatives oppose these support groups to begin with, Teresa Pierre, director of Ontario Catholic Parent Advocates, says it best:

[Pierre] said her group believes that Dalton McGuinty, the Premier of Ontario, wants to force Catholic schools to allow groups like gay-straight alliances that would end up promoting homosexuality as acceptable, something that goes against official Church teaching.

Bill 13 passed second reading in December and is awaiting third reading. I’m pleased at the wording of this legislation and at the rapid evolution of the party behind it. How far the Liberal Party of Ontario has come in only a year.

As noted earlier, the bill does face opposition. The Ottawa Sun had an op-ed piece on the matter, calling the legislation “gay rights being forced on religious schools.” Another writer, this time for the National Post, stated that in lifting the ban on the support groups would constitute a “violation of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.” These writers are not alone in their views.

The opponents are framing this as a question of rights, but I suspect that it’s just the most convenient explanation to justify underlying prejudice. The rights argument itself is a shaky one, as the right being claimed here is the right to marginalize children because they’re born different. I believe that such frivolous invocation of infringement of religious liberties erodes the public’s perception of real violations of religious freedoms that do take place.

In other news, the Ontario Catholic Schools Trustees Association released their guidelines for the diversity groups they wish to have queer students join instead of the banned GSA. According to those very guidelines, however, any discussion on gender identity would be “inappropriate” to discuss in the forums and gay students would be viewed as “intrinsically disordered.” Not exactly what I’d consider support, and a reminder of why this provincial legislation is necessary.

Update February 7^th 2012: I’m not sure what to make of the interview with Education Minister Laurel Broten on TVO’s The Agenda yesterday. In the last minutes of the show, its host, Steve Paikin, asked the education minister some questions about GSAs and the “diversity groups” I derided above.

Her responses made me question whether the government would in fact end the ban, or whether they would allow it to continue as long as these false support groups were present.

 

The picture of the television screen above was taken from my hotel room in Toronto a few weeks ago. The caption read “Forcing Liberal Agenda on Kids” and was referring to the new provisions in the Ontario curriculum that would make schools more inclusive for queer students. Naturally, the accompanying imagery wasn’t of children, but of a cross-dresser, and the guest invited on the show was homophobic.

The above image, meanwhile, is a full-page advertisement that ran across the country in the National Post last month. It also speaks out against the new plans to make schools more welcoming. The Post would later apologize on the basis of the manipulative nature of the advertisement. The Toronto Sun, perhaps in reaction to this apology, decided to then run the advertisement themselves. The individual behind the ad campaign was Charles McVety, who had earlier asserted “that homosexuals prey on children.”

During this past fall election in Ontario, the Progressive Conservatives, the official opposition party in this province, also took aim at the plans for more inclusive schools. Like the other ads, it was deeply misleading. Some of the quotes were fabrications not found in the material they cited. This is the party that came very close to being in charge of education in this province.

In August, the Ottawa-Carleton School Board (OCSB) decided to march in Pride to show solidarity with its students. This was too much for the editors at the Ottawa Sun, which ran the news as a page 2 piece along with the above image to maximize impact. As expected, most of their readers were quite incensed and the paper was flooded with homophobic comments.

The reality was of course quite a joyful matter, with teachers and staff showing their support for students. I took the photo above of them at Pride. Unfortunately, it isn’t just conservative media outlets and religious lobbies that have pushed against all forms of support for queer students. Some of the opposition has come from the school environment as well.

One in three students in this province are in a school where Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) are banned. While much of the blame for this ban on support groups deservedly is directed towards the religious arm of this province’s education system, parents too bear some of the responsibility. As it was described of parents in a meeting at the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) debating the non-discrimination policies introduced by the Ontario government:

Over the course of the evening, the TCDSB heard claims that GSAs “indoctrinate” and “confuse” youth by “normalizing” a “dangerous lifestyle.” Many others demanded that any reference to “sexual orientation” be removed from the document. The sense is that if students start talking about their identity, they will begin having sex.

The crowd was distinctly divided by age. Most of those who stood to speak were adults who argued that allowing a GSA would open the door to “sexual promiscuity and disease.”

One parent quoted the Catholic Catechism that says gays are “objectively disordered.”

“There is nothing wrong with telling our kids [being gay] is a dangerous lifestyle,” said another parent, who refused to give her name.

Whereas none of the aforementioned examples of prejudice would be deemed acceptable were it racist or antisemitic in nature, it is still far too often categorized as valid criticism on matters of young students and their orientation or gender identity.

So to simply blame bullies and educators for the difficulties of students over their orientation or gender identity ignores a significant part of the problem. Schools do not operate in a void. There are a number of organizations and individuals that are successful in preventing initiatives to make schools a healthy environment for queer students. We must come to challenge these entities as we do the bullies.

The new school year has come, and contrary to my hopes, LGBT students in Catholic schools are still banned from forming Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) clubs.

However, to satisfy the provincial government, these schools are to roll out their own groups using a framework devised by the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association which is to manage the issue with a “Catholic perspective.” This is the same perspective that dictates that being gay is “intrinsically disordered and contrary to natural law.”

I wrote about the absurdity of such a solution in a previous blog entry:

Gay-Straight Alliances are student run clubs that provide support for students affected by LGBT issues and their allies.  The good they’ve done in making schools safer for students have been espoused over and over by the Ministry of Education.

Meanwhile, the framework clubs came to be out of an opposition to the genuine support offered by GSAs. Not exactly a promising start. Furthermore, its mandate is being worked out by the same institution whose leadership in Ontario dictates that gay students must be viewed as intrinsically disordered. The same institution that continues to marginalize queer students, sometimes to absurd lengths.

Imagine if an organization who believed that racial minorities were “intrinsically disordered” had decided to come up with their own version of an anti-racism club, as a means to prevent real anti-racism clubs from taking hold. I think it’s quite evident how students would not likely be served with such alternatives.

This is a strategy of co-opting a support group as to prevent the help it would provide from reaching students. These doppelganger clubs satisfy both the requirements of the provincial government and the views of the Catholic boards, which continues its opposition to the acceptance of sexual diversity. As such, it is unlikely that we’ll see any further movement from these two organizations on the matter.

The only ones left behind in this deal are the very ones this was supposed to be about: queer students seeking genuine support in a homophobic system.