(This message contains an action item for anyone concerned about education in Catholic schools.)
The province has requested that the terms “gender identity”, “gender expression”, “marital status”, and “family status” be added to the prohibited grounds of discrimination contained in the Toronto Catholic District School Board’s (TCDSB) Code of Conduct.
What is the problem with adding the terms?
- teachers could be disciplined for teaching the Catholic moral teaching on sexuality and gender
- the Board could be forced to hire teachers who openly model a lifestyle contrary to Catholic moral teaching
- it will open the door to the elimination of safe spaces for girls and women such as bathrooms and change rooms
For more information on the effects experienced in one American public school district after the addition of the term “gender identity” to its non-discrimination policy, click here.
Help convince the Board NOT to force gender ideology into Catholic schools!
Toronto trustees will be voting on Thurs. Dec. 5.
PAFE supports trustees who have proposed a motion that states in part: “That all members of the TCDSB community shall respect and treat others fairly, as children of God, created in the image and likeness of God, of infinite dignity and worth.”
This wording is wholly inclusive of all in the community because it avoids labelling people by personal characteristics. It corresponds to the spirit and letter of the Ontario Human Rights Code, the Education Act, and PPM 128.
Trustees in support of the above motion at a meeting on Oct. 30 included Nancy Crawford, Michael Del Grande, Garry Tanuan and Teresa Lubinski, while board chair Maria Rizzo voted against it. The motion goes for approval of the Student Achievement committee on Dec. 5 and to final board on Dec. 12.
WHAT CAN YOU DO??
1. Please EMAIL the TCDSB’s Director of Education, Rory McGuckin at [email protected], and copy Cardinal Collins at [email protected]
- Ask Rory McGuckin NOT to add further categories of non-discrimination to the Code (i.e., NOT to add “gender identity”, “gender expression”, “marital status”, and “family status” to the Code of Conduct).
- Ask him to support the rights of parents and students to operate Catholic schools according to their teachings.
- Tell him to support the motion that states in part: “That all members of the TCDSB community shall respect and treat others fairly, as children of God, created in the image and likeness of God, of infinite dignity and worth.”
2. If you do not live in Toronto
- FORWARD this message to your friends and family in Toronto who are Catholic school supporters. Ask them to write to their trustee.
- Let us know they have written by emailing [email protected] or leaving a message at 416-763-7233.
3. If you are a Toronto Catholic school supporter
- Write to your Catholic trustee to encourage him/her to vote in favor of the Archdiocese’s wholly inclusive language: “That all members of the TCDSB community shall respect and treat others fairly, as children of God, created in the image and likeness of God, of infinite dignity and worth.”
- Let us know you have written to your trustee by emailing [email protected] or leaving a message at 416-763-7233. Please let us know if you have questions about who to write to or what to say.
For more information that you can use to write your letters, click here.
To support PAFE's important work, please make a donation to PAFE today by clicking here.
Best regards,
Teresa Pierre, Ph.D.
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I live in BC. Our pastor, also president of the Priests Federation, has gone to Vancouver for a Catholic
schools meeting. I am hopeful that all Catholic Schools will be supportive of you.
Being amongst the poor financially, I feel very much out-of-the-loop with this government who is focusing on the middle class and up, not on the poor. Maybe that is where the Church in Canada is also.
With Christ, everyone matters.
We care about freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion. But that is being quickly eroded with the Liberal Government
as Trudeau is in the process of establishing a dictatorship with a secular & ungodly approach.
We prayed for godly leaders in the last federal election. What do we have?
Toward the end of the Second World War we heard Communism’s threat to take over the world by 1) establishing cell groups in all nations, 2) destroying women and thereby 3) destroying the family.
And when the historians follow the process of intrenching Nazism in Germany we are, evidently, following the same track record.
With the loss of community and people’s God given rights there is the loss of solidarity. I could see that happening with the sexual revolution then the 85% of Catholics who opposed Humane Vite and previously the warning of the Canadian Catholic Council of Bishops’ warning: give into use of artificial birth control, which can be an abortive, this will lead to abortion, which will lead to the younger generation euthanizing their grandparents & parents, then the inferm, mentally & emotionally sick, the physically & mentally challenged.
The Church has warned us over and over about materialism, secularism/godless society. We are taught about God as Triune, constantly in relationship, with love outpouring infinitely beyond measure, full of mercy. We learn about Christ who came to save us from our erroneous ways, showed us
the Father’s love, one with His love, toward all humanity and with all those who believed their was released in them the power of the Holy Spirit.
Look at what has been released in countries over the centuries with release of the Holy Spirit, the sacrifices made to establish healthy families, Christian Schools & Hospitals, how societies have been transformed. With the power of the Holy Spirit Christians were able to do the by transcending the much & mire of life and with FAITH & TRUST in Jesus in His redemptive sacrifice and in His Father, Our Father, who did not abandon anyone, on the contrary raised Jesus from His death on the cross.
Our Christian Faith does inform our politics and any action we take on behalf of our Families & Christian Community. And because Christianity is universal in it’s dimensions I have faith that we will succeed in our currant dilemmas.
As goes the families goes the nations do not to be tampers with in any way. Let Christ be the centre of each family.
Part of our dilemma today is we SEE far too many people on the margins. We are not inclusive when we teach for understanding at the expense of the traditional family.
The big question is, “How can we more effectively bring the marginalized into communion with the Mystical Body of Christ. How does Jesus desire our lives to be transformed – all of us – so that together we more truely reflect the Body of Christ.
I understand this is Jesus’ work. We are all helping out and doing our part. Jesus asks me to “listen” and ”What part am I willing to do? We are not to be walked over
rather to be leaders in showing society that PARENTS ARE FIRST EDUCATORS and how this can be supported by governments through-out our nation.
It sounds like this could be like a filibuster by time the government/nation is correctly educated about Christianity and the place of traditional families within living communities of our nation.
This would be done only to correctly inform and to wake people up to what we are called to be.
Well, I must stop. I need to deliver posters and rack cards about
Major meetings on Vancouver Is, for International Speaker & Best-Selling Pro-Life Author Denise Mountenay speaking in Victoria on Tuesday Nov. 19th at North Douglas Church at 675 Jolly Place, and Alex Schadenberg, executive Director, Euthenasia Prevention Coalition, speaking on Thursday Dec. 5, 2019 at 7:00 pm at North Douglas Church, 675 Jolly Place. Watch “Fatal Flaws.”