TH E CATHOLIC BOARD AND GAY RIGHTS,

Two students at St. George Catholic School in Ottawa were assigned a project on social justice. They chose gay rights, but the principal said that a presentation on that topic would be inappropriate for children.

This is yet another infuriating example of the plain truth that a school system cannot simultaneously teach the values of a single branch of a single religion while claiming to be a public school that serves all citizens of a pluralistic society.

Initially, the Ottawa Catholic School Board’s position — conveyed in a statement by chairman Ted J. Hurley — was that the curriculum already “covers all topics around personhood, relationships and sexuality and is developed and taught in an age-appropriate manner” and that “the principal’s decision was made in this context and with the understanding that the project was going to be presented to younger students.”

The idea that gay rights is a topic inappropriate for Grade 4 and 5 students is a puzzler. What does that say to the students of that age with same-sex parents? The idea that a child too young for the birds-and-bees talk can’t understand that Daddy loves Daddy makes no more sense than saying a child can’t understand that Mommy loves Daddy. It’s ludicrous and a reflection of old, bigoted attitudes. It’s a pernicious idea that to talk about gay people’s civil rights in a “social justice” context involves talk of “sexuality,” while talk of straight people’s civil rights does not.

On Friday, after news stories and public reaction, Hurley put out a new statement saying he’d had a chance to “review the entire matter” — as if it were somehow complex. The board’s new position was that the project can go ahead. Hurley explained: “The Holy Father, Pope Francis, has made it clear that our attitudes to gay and lesbian people should be addressed with love and dignity in an open and transparent way, when he said, ‘Who am I to judge?’” Even in deciding that this project was acceptable, the board looked to the Pope for guidance. Which might be all well and good if this were a private religious school. It is not. What if the Pope didn’t say that? What if this had happened a few years ago, under a different pope? Why is the pope the arbiter of what students are allowed to study in publicly funded and publicly run schools in Ontario? The Catholic school system is desperately trying to hold on to the fiction that it be Catholic and public at the same time in 2014.