Category: GSAs

For all those of you who have been following me for a while, I apologize that the focus of my blog has become all about LGBT issues. I talk about what I’m interested in, and right now it has to do with these problems.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been campaigning to lift the ban on Gay-Straight Alliance clubs (GSAs) by the Ottawa Catholic School Board (OCSB). For those of you who aren’t aware of what GSAs are, I’ll refer you to the definition provided by Ontario’s Ministry of Education:

Gay/Straight Alliances are student-run and teacher-supported school-based groups that work to create safe, caring, and inclusive spaces for gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans-identified, and two-spirited students and their allies in schools.

They’re essentially safe spaces where LGBT youth and their allies can get together and talk, and are cited over and over by the Ministry of Education as a means to make schools safer. However, due to the homophobic views of the Catholic hierarchy here in Ontario, they have been banned from Ontarian Catholic schools. In fact, according to the weekly paper Xtra!, not a single Catholic school here in Ontario has one of these clubs.

It was my original expectation that the journalists would do their job and expose these policies, which the politicians would then jump on and pressure to remove. That would not turn out to be the case. When a journalist interviewed an official from the Ottawa Catholic School Board, the representative managed to spin their ban as a move for social justice and equity. The journalist didn’t question the contradiction. I wrote about that here. Politicians, meanwhile have kept silent. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me, our province’s leaders have no interest in getting involved.

Disappointed with how things were turning out, I decided to jump into the fray. I started a website and petition. I designed a poster, which I put all over town. A reporter called me to do an interview with the Orleans Star.

From the article that resulted from that interview, it was clear that I had underestimated the representatives of the Ottawa Catholic School Board. When asked for their version of events by the reporter, they painted my whole effort as the result of a misunderstanding. They stated that they didn’t have a ban:

“We’re aware of Mr. McArdle’s petition, and the petition is asking for a retraction of something we don’t currently have,” she said. “We don’t have a ban on gay-straight alliances, nor do we have a policy banning gay-straight alliances.”

This can be true depending on which definition of “ban” you’re going for. By the OCSB’s definition, a ban is only a ban if it is spelt out in black and white for all to see like it was in Halton. By my definition, a ban is in place if the school board prohibits those clubs on their grounds, regardless of how it is justified. The journalist in the Orleans Star hinted at this when she asked the official whether a student could in fact then start a GSA in an Ottawa Catholic school, and the answer wasn’t a “yes.” When she asked another official if there was any GSAs in Ottawa, the answer was a no.

This reminded me of another interview with an Ontario Catholic School Board about Gay-Straight Alliances:

“No, I wouldn’t say we ban them. We support student clubs that support inclusiveness, especially for students who might otherwise feel marginalized. But all our clubs must, however, adhere to the Catholic teachings and values,” says [superintendent of education for the Bruce-Grey Catholic District School Board Gerald Casey]. Could students at a Bruce Grey Catholic school start a GSA? “The answer would be no,” admits Casey.

So again, the board official said that they didn’t ban the clubs – but stated that a student would not be allowed to start them. I don’t draw a distinction between a ban and banning something. These officials do. Because they do, it makes it possible for them to deny the very things they are doing, and by that virtue, escape the criticism that would come with any admission. How they can continue to state such contradictory remarks and not be called on them by journalists or politicians is really something I have a hard time comprehending.

Another tactic used by Catholic school boards, including what was used on me in my brief discussions with the OCSB, was to cite the fact that they have anti-bullying campaigns that target homophobia. They use this as an example to prove that they don’t marginalize gay students, and in fact welcome them. While I maintain that these efforts are very positive, their presence doesn’t negate the discriminatory policies of the school board.

Nevertheless, this seemingly conflicting stance on its queer youth does tend to confound observers. To understand how an institution could promote an end to homophobic bullying while still engaging in activities that others might perceive as bullying, you must understand the Catholic view of homosexuality itself.

Within the Catholic hierarchy here in Ontario, there is this view that being a sexual minority is acceptable, but that exhibiting any homosexual behaviour is not. Love the sinner, hate the sin. To quote the guidelines issued to all Ontario Catholic schools by the Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario:

An irreversible homosexual orientation is not sinful, since it is not sought by homosexual persons. A tendency, desire or inclination are not choices and are therefore not wrong in themselves. There is a real difference between sexual desire and the decision to act on it. The Church makes a critical distinction between orientation, and conduct or behaviour.

And it goes on:

The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial.

And on:

Thus, romantic behaviour between homosexual persons is morally unacceptable, because it points toward future sexual relationships that are non-marital.

And on:

While the Church respects an individual who has done his or her best to come to a correct moral judgment, it is not obligated to accommodate a decision based on an individual’s erroneous conscience. This includes a student who blamelessly arrives at the mistaken conclusion that homosexual acts can be morally good.

This is why the Ottawa Catholic School Board has anti-bullying programs: because it protects the person (sinner), without promoting homosexuality itself (sin). It is also for this very reason that clubs like Gay-Straight Alliances are prohibited. These clubs, by their nature of being a support group for students, might make the students realize that it’s okay to be gay. That there is something intrinsically wrong with being told that you should never be allowed to fall in love with someone, to marry them, to have children with them, and to grow old with them.

The OCSB draws a line where none exists. From it’s perspective, it isn’t marginalizing students. By the measure of every person who doesn’t view homosexuality as “intrinsically disordered”, they are. These students are being denied a support group purely because of the fact that they belong to a minority to which the Church is opposed.

This is not right and I will continue to confront the Ottawa Catholic School Board for as long as they continue to discriminate against the youth under their care. They can accuse me of misunderstanding all they want, but there is only one rebuke that will satisfy me: when a Gay-Straight Alliance is finally allowed to exist in an Ottawa Catholic school.

This was originally an update to my previous post about homophobia in Halton, but  I got pissed off enough that I thought it warranted it’s own post. The Ottawa Catholic School Board is just as homophobic, but they learned from Halton’s public relations disaster. They learned how to spin their anti-LGBT actions as equity and justice.

Officials for the Ottawa Catholic School Board (OCSB) were interviewed by the Ottawa Citizen last week. According to Tom D’Amico, a superintendent for the Ottawa Catholic School Board, Gay-Straight Alliance clubs are banned in his schools as well. The reasoning, to quote the Citizen:

Here in Ottawa, D’Amico said the English Catholic school board doesn’t use the name “gay-straight alliance” because the Assembly of Ontario Bishops — to whom school boards look for spiritual guidance — prefer a name that reflects a more general focus on equity and social justice.

They Assembly of Ontario Bishops, which the school turns to for spiritual guidance, has this to say about gay students:

Teachers must consult the following: Section 2357 and 2358 (always together) of the Catechism of the Catholic Church 1997.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Section 2357 reads:

…tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

This is a brilliant marketing spin. It’s an anti-gay policy, under the guise of… equity and justice? Simple rhetorical question: are Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) clubs allowed? No. Would the same club be under a different name? Not if we’re to believe D’Amico. The Board wants something with a different focus.

It seems they would approve clubs with a broader scope if it meant that LGBT students and the issues they have are marginalized. Heaven forbid there’d be a club in the Ottawa Catholic schools that’s specifically there to provide a safe space for queer students and their allies to discuss. Tom D’Amico noted:

“A student who is openly gay in our schools, we want all of our students and staff to accept (them) … We don’t want to see them marginalized in any manner.”

That reminded me of a quote by Michael Pautler, of the gay-students-are-lesser-beings Halton Catholic District School Board:

“All students that attend school should be able to feel free of harassment and are protected from any forms of persecution or anything that makes them feel marginalized.”

Seems like we have a different definition of what it is to be marginalized. Would the Ottawa Catholic School Board outright ban chess clubs or clubs for anime fans, citing that their focus wasn’t “general” enough? I don’t think so.

I digress. The OCSB has the same policy as Halton, but the former had a much better public relations campaign. It doesn’t change the fact that both school boards are led by those who marginalize and actively seek to undermine students on a basis of gender orientation and identity.

The Halton Catholic District School Board serves 29,000 elementary and secondary school students in the municipalities of Oakville, Burlington, Milton and Halton Mills. It has enacted a policy to ban Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) clubs from forming in their schools.

For those who aren’t familiar with GSAs, they’re support groups for queer students and their allies. A safe haven where students can talk openly, free of the pressures and ridicule they might encounter at home, in their community, or at school.

Mrs. Alice Anne LeMay, chair of the Halton Catholic District School Board defends the ban on such clubs. From the article in Xtra:

“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.

In other words, the Catholic church demonizes gays, and therefore so will her school board. To equate this kind of support group to something akin to Nazi-ism is sadly indicative of her overall views of that segment of the students under her care.

Michael Pautler, the education director of the school board noted:

“All students that attend school should be able to feel free of harassment and are protected from any forms of persecution or anything that makes them feel marginalized.”

Indeed they should Mr. Pautler. Yet it must be hard for a queer student not to feel marginalized, when their own school enacts policies to marginalize them. It must be hard to feel free of persecution and harassment, when their own school is headed by someone who believes that their very existence is flawed, and denies them the opportunity to create the one space where they would be free of harassment and persecution.

When you deny support groups to those who need them, what do you think happens? When those who need support don’t get it, what do you think happens? I’ll give you a hint: the suicide rate for gay teens is four times that of their straight counterparts. We’re talking lives here.

This is prejudice, pure and simple. And no tax dollars of mine should be supporting this kind of idiocy.

Shame on you Alice Anne LeMay.

Update January 17^th: The Ottawa Catholic School Board also doesn’t allow Gay-Straight Alliance clubs. They learned from Halton’s public relations mistakes though. Instead of equating gays with Nazis, they said they don’t allow the clubs in name only “because the Assembly of Ontario Bishops — to whom school boards look for spiritual guidance — prefer a name that reflects a more general focus on equity and social justice.” That’s a really nice marketing spin.

Simple rhetorical question: are the groups to explicitly support LGBT students allowed? No. Why not? Because the Church doesn’t want them. They want to marginalize it’s purpose by incorporating issues, under the guise of equity and justice. Cognitive dissonance much?