Category: Human Rights

Discussions on rights, including on orientation, identity, and employment (eg. sex work).

  • Homophobia in an Ontario Catholic School Board

    Homophobia in an Ontario Catholic School Board

    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.

    Mrs. Alice Anne LeMay

    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 17th: 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?

  • Trans Day of Remembrance

    Trans Day of Remembrance

    Saturday, November 20th, was the Transgender Day of Remembrance. In Ottawa, this was celebrated with the unraveling of a flag at the headquarters of the Ottawa Police, followed by a march to Parliament Hill and a candlelight vigil.

    NDP MP Bill Siksay, the man with the megaphone in the picture above, was there to speak about bill C-389. This private member’s bill, which he tabled, would “add gender identity and expression as prohibited grounds of discrimination to the Canadian Human Rights Act” (link).

    All in all, the mood was very joyous. The crowd was supportive, and Jay and I ended up having a nice long discussion with a trans woman. Growing up in the sixties, she experienced some horrific treatment by those around her. Things have changed since, but laws like this would ensure that there would be no buts or ifs about it.

    Canadians from all over came out for this event on Saturday. There was a solid contingent from Montreal (pictured above in the group photo), people from London and Toronto… it was just great to see.

  • Letter to my HR Department

    Letter to my HR Department

    Hi [HR Person],

    I was reading through our Manulife insurance policy. This is the bit where the term “spouse” is defined:

    “Spouse”, means an individual under the age of 70;

    a) to whom you are legally married,
    b) of the opposite sex with whom you have continuously cohabitated and who has been publicly represented as your spouse for a minimum of one (1) year immediately before a Loss is incurred under the Program.

    I’m in a same-sex relationship. Thus, short of marrying my partner, he would never be covered by the policy under the current wording. For me, having a work place that will cover my partner and my (future) children is very important. It impacts my decision making process when I evaluate where I want to be in five years.

    I thought the policy might be worded as such because the definition of common law unions in Ontario might itself be discriminatory. But nope, common law in Ontario extends to same-sex couples as well. Thus, this discrimination against my relationship is entirely Manulife’s – there is no federal or provincial law that imposes these policies unto them.

    I would like for us to ask Manulife to correct their wording. This policy is discriminatory, and I know that I’m not the only person in this office that would benefit from the inclusion of gay and lesbian couples. That said, I wouldn’t want to push this issue at the expense of having Manulife reciprocate by removing this second clause entirely. My aim is to make things better, and ending up by making things worse would defeat the purpose.

    Thank you,

    – Julien


    Update: I received this reply back:

    Thanks for sharing this with me, Julien. Now is a good time to know these things bec we are in the process of all these [redacted]…will make sure this item is in the discussion agenda for future decisions.

    Thanks and hopefully all these will be sorted out.

    [HR Person]

    I hope so too.