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When two Grade 6 students at St. George Catholic School in Ottawa were assigned a class project on social justice, they chose gay rights as their topic.

“A lot of people, they don’t know they’re being rude, but they make being gay a bad thing,” said 11-year-old Quinn Maloney-Tavares, who picked the topic with her friend, Polly Hamilton. “They need to know that it’s not a bad thing.”

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But school principal Ann Beauchamp had other ideas. She vetoed the topic.

“The girls were upset and disappointed,” Quinn’s mother, Ann Maloney, said Wednesday.

As a silent protest, the two wore rainbow colours to school and painted small rainbow flags on their hands.

When they explained why, their classmates said, “Oh my goodness, guys, that’s such a good idea,” Quinn said. Several other students painted rainbow flags on their hands in solidarity.

Maloney and Polly’s mother, Kate, met last week with Beauchamp, hoping to change her mind. Social justice is supposed to be messy, they told her. It’s not supposed to be comfortable.