Ontario Catholics are pushing back against the provincial Liberal government’s plan to force them to accept Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) in their schools.

Thomas Cardinal Collins, the Archbishop of Toronto and President of the Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario, said in a statement issued Monday that all people, of faith or not, should be concerned by this action.

“If it happens to us, it can happen to you on this and other issues,” Collins said. “When religious freedom becomes a second class right, you also will eventually be affected.”

Collins said the GSA model was developed in the United States in the 1980s to promote views on human life and other issues that contradict beliefs of Catholics.

Catholic educators are asking the amendment be defeated, but have not ruled in or out a constitutional challenge if the bill passes as amended.

Marino Gazzola, president of the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association, said the government’s Accepting Schools Act now emphasizes gay bullying over all other grounds that a student might be intimidated, harassed or physically assaulted by peers.

”In our view, the word itself is a distraction,” Gazzola said.

When asked if he believed the word “gay” was a distraction, Gazzola said, ”It can be. It just it takes away from the entire focus of our message which is the safety of all the students.”

Gazzola said Catholic schools already have clubs by other names that deal with gay, lesbian and transgendered issues.

Education Minister Laurel Broten introduced an amendment Friday to her government’s anti-bullying bill that would strip school officials of their power to veto the club name Gay-Straight Alliance.

Broten said words are very meaningful, and students have told the government that it’s important they have a club name that reflects who they are.

“(Premier Dalton McGuinty) and I were both very clear that it was not for us at Queen’s Park to tell them what the name of their club should be, but neither should it be for someone else sitting in some other office in the province to tell them what the name of their club can’t be,” Broten said. “At a committee hearing we heard over and over again from students how important it was that they be able to have the name of the club reflected a space of safety and inclusion in their school. “

Broten said the name Gay-Straight Alliance has become a generic term for anti-homophobia groups.

The minister believes her anti-bullying bill can be adopted within the context of Catholic education.

“I feel very confident the Accepting School Act, with the amendment we proposed, can be operationalized within our schools and will lives compatibly with denominational rights,” she said.