Last week Walt told you how another self-styled "Catholic" politician -- Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty -- wants publicly-funded "Catholic" schools to allow the use of the soubriquet "gay-straight alliance" for "anti-homophobia" or "anti-bullying" clubs, if students so choose. Walt's choice would be "hug-a-queer clubs". But if the students want to use a heavily politicised phrase which comes to Canada from the American "LGBT rights" movement, McGuinty has no problem with that.
Who could have a problem with such a progressive concept as a "gay-straight alliance"? The Roman Catholic Church, that's who. Yesterday Thomas Cardinal Collins, the Archbishop of Toronto called the latest ukase from the Ontario Ministry of Education an attack on religious freedom. Which is exactly what it is.
"Why," asked the prelate "is an Act of the Legislature being used to, in a sense, micromanage the naming of student clubs? If the government at Queen’s Park comes in, the law comes in, and says this approach is going to be imposed across the board, anyone, any school, any person, any one student anywhere can trump the principal on this thing, this is...remarkable. Where’s the flexibility? Where’s the inclusivity?"
His Eminence is angry not just because of moral problems with the concept, but also because until Friday's announcement by Lauren Broten, the Minister of Education, the Catholics thought they had a deal with the McGuinty government to handle the issue in their own way. Cardinal Collins had spoken personally with the premier about the matter, and other church officials had been in ongoing discussions with the Liberal government over the new "bully law", so were blindsided by the minister’s unilateral announcement.
Christina Blizzard, writing in the Toronto Sun, calls the move "a breathtaking ambush... with far-reaching implications". Ms Blizzard also calls the last-minute amendment to the proposed legislation a remarkable display of hypocrisy on Broten's part -- her children go to a Catholic school -- as well as the pseudo-Catholic McGuinty, whose wife actually teaches in the Catholic system.
"As professionals, as politicians and as parents," the article continues, "they are well aware why the Catholic system exists and what its values are. [As Cardinal] Collins pointed out, if McGuinty tramples Catholic rights, he’ll walk over anyone. 'If you can do this to one group, you can do it to others.'" [My emphasis. Walt.]
In his press conference yesterday, Cardinal Collins said the Church was still taking legal advice as to the feasibility of mounting a court challenge under Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Such an action would be on behalf of the majority of parents -- not just Catholics but parents of all faiths and no faith -- who told recent hearings here they opposed the "gay-straight alliances" and the Liberal government's continued pushing of the queer agenda. The issue is nothing less than one of religious freedom.
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