Ontario Catholic teachers to march in the Pride parade, proving not all Catholic school board officials are jerks
School participation in Toronto’s Pride parade has become weirdly controversial lately, thanks in part to the tireless efforts of people like TDSB trustee Sam Sotiropoulos, who seems to think that the sight of a stray dong could scar an innocent high-schooler for life. And so it’s somewhat surprising that the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association is planning to march in this year’s parade.
According to the Post, the OECTA, a Catholic teachers’ union, voted a few months ago to participate in this year’s World Pride extravaganza. James Ryan, the union’s president, told the Post that the OECTA’s gesture is meant as a show of support for LGBT colleagues and students, and not as a protest of the church’s teachings on chastity.
And yet, not everyone involved in the province’s notoriously conservative Catholic education system (it was only a couple years ago that Catholic schools were forced to allow students to form gay-straight alliances) is on board the metaphorical rainbow-hued parade float. Toronto Cardinal Thomas Collins issued a statement accusing the union’s members and leadership of having “an inadequate and mistaken understanding of their faith,” and a parents group called Parents as First Educators is lamenting the fact that students may get the idea that “dissent can and should be openly practised.” Because, of course, children and teenagers never openly disagreed with their elders before the gays got involved. Right.
![](http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://torontolife.com/city/ontario-catholic-teachers-march-pride-parade-proving-catholic-school-board-officials-jerks/&title=Ontario Catholic teachers to march in the Pride parade, proving not all Catholic school board officials are jerks&picture=https://torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/pride-parade-toronto-624x395.jpg&description=[caption id="attachment_277757" align="alignnone" width="656"] (Image: Neal Jennings)[/caption]
School participation in Toronto's Pride parade has become weirdly controversial lately, thanks in part to the tireless efforts of people like TDSB trustee Sam Sotiropoulos, who seems to think that the sight of a stray dong could scar an innocent high-schooler for life. And so it's somewhat surprising that the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association is planning to march in this year's parade.
According to the Post, the OECTA, a Catholic teachers' union, voted a few months ago to participate in this year's World Pride extravaganza. James Ryan, the union's president, told the Post that the OECTA's gesture is meant as a show of support for LGBT colleagues and students, and not as a protest of the church's teachings on chastity.
And yet, not everyone involved in the province's notoriously conservative Catholic education system (it was only a couple years ago that Catholic schools were forced to allow students to form gay-straight alliances) is on board the metaphorical rainbow-hued parade float. Toronto Cardinal Thomas Collins issued a statement accusing the union's members and leadership of having "an inadequate and mistaken understanding of their faith," and a parents group called Parents as First Educators is lamenting the fact that students may get the idea that "dissent can and should be openly practised." Because, of course, children and teenagers never openly disagreed with their elders before the gays got involved. Right.){kind=link}
Cardinal Collins should focus less on those parts of the Bible with judgmental hectoring, and more on the parts that encourage Christian love. The only one with an inadequate understanding of faith is him.
Right wing fanatics should listen to the Pope, and preach more about love, acceptance, and grace rather then continually thinking about ‘below the waist’. Congratulations to OECTA for the show of support and respect.
OECTA is wrong. Support for LGBT kids doesn’t mean participating in the flesh show.
The only “stray dong” in this trash ‘journalism’ is the author himself.
I am quite surprised that Toronto Life would publish this trashy article – starting with its title. For an author that I can only guess supports respect and tolerance, they show a complete lack of it when it comes to Catholics. Homophobia bad, but bigotry good?
I’m sure that’s just how Pope Francis would express his thoughts on the matter…..
Flesh show? Seriously?
popsiq’s comment shows precisely why it is important for OECTA to be marching in the Pride parade.
Fact is that a number of Catholic school board officials have been intolerant towards the LGBT youth in their care. The headline and article say nothing at all about Catholics in general. It’s not “bigotry” to criticize school board officials. The only person jumping to conclusions and engaging in unwarranted criticisms is you, Clare.
The entire purpose of reporting is to inform the public so that they have a direct pipeline with current events. This article (and its author) throws away this goal, not to mention all common sense and fairness, in order to express an immature and tactless opinion. I’m appalled at the amount of bias I see here. If I had a reporter working for me that spoke of ANY ethnic or religious group as “jerks”, I would refuse to publish the article and fire him/her immediately. This article is very offensive and it was a terrible choice to include it.
No school should be ok with the fact that many LGBT students do not feel welcome or safe at school. We do need to work harder to demonstrate love to these students and improve the quality of support for them in place.
BUT promoting nudity and an event that indeed opposes the Church’s teaching on chastity is not the only way to show our LGBT staff and students support. Actually, it is a terrible way to do it and will lead to misunderstanding of the faith from people on both sides.
You may have interpreted the term “jerk” somewhere in his article, but that would be your interpretation; and as such, is only “your” opinion, not mine.
A spade being called a spade is still a spade. These people are jerks, so why not call them that?
We’ve got Catholic school trustees and radical (extremist?) right-wing groups denouncing OECTA for participating in the Pride Parade because it’s un-Catholic. The people doing their bigoted denouncing are jerks, plain and simple. They care not one bit about the damage their public pronouncements inflict on people around the province.
This is a POSITIVE news story. It shows that a sizeable portion (quite possibly majority–most Catholics I know have express shame for the actions of the trustees) of Catholics are not jerks and are prepared to stand publicly with the LGBTQ community against those who’d rather they repress who they are so the socon perverts (sorry, jerks) can live life knowing they can control how someone else experiences life (can you tell what I think of pure evil that is social conservatism?).