Michael Del Grande speaking at the Toronto Catholic District School Board meeting (tcdsb.org)

A Canadian school official who came under fire last month for comparing being LGBT+ to being a vampire or a paedophile has been given a “prestigious” award for “defending children’s wellbeing”.

Michael Del Grande, a school-board representative in Toronto, was given the award for his “unwavering commitment to defending authentic Catholic teaching”.

Del Grande has a long history of anti-LGBT+ action. At a board meeting on November 7, he voted against adding gender identity and gender expression to the Toronto Catholic District School Board’s code of conduct, comparing “evil” gender protections to paedophilia and vampirism.

He said that doing so would see the board heading down a “slippery slope”, and facetiously put forward a bizarre amendment suggesting the inclusion of other categories like bestiality, paedophilia, cannibalism, auto-asphyxiation and vampirism.

Del Grande refused to apologise.

Now, he has been awarded the Joseph P Borowski Award, given to “a politician who has demonstrated outstanding commitment to the cause of protecting human life and the family”.

The award, from the Campaign Life Coalition, a Canadian lobbying organisation that is anti-abortion and anti-LGBT+, is “for outstanding bravery in defending children’s emotional, psychological, spiritual, and medical wellbeing”.

Toronto’s mayor, John Tory, and education minister, Stephen Leece, both condemned Del Grande’s comments and promised an investigation.

Tory called Del Grande “dinoasur-like”.

“I find the comments made by the trustee to be quite unacceptable and quite disturbing, actually,” Lecce said, adding that gender identity protections are “not an item that is for discussion”.

Lecce confirmed the board’s own internal processes will continue, but he made clear “that the government finds those comments unacceptable in this province, for any child who already feels victimised or stigmatised in the classroom.”

Del Grande claims he’s been called a ‘hero’.

Incredibly, in the face of all this criticism Del Grande actually doubled down on his position, writing on Christian news outlet LifeSite that he won’t back down from “evil”.

“I have been called a ‘hero’ by supporters,” he claimed. “I am not a hero. I am a faithful Catholic with an informed conscience standing up for Catholic education and Church teachings.”

He said he’d been “harassed, hated, and repudiated” for taking a stand against “a gender ideology which is incompatible with the Christian anthropology of the human person – a stand that was twisted by the media and believed by those who needed someone on which to focus their hate”.

Speaking of hate, Del Grande ended his article with a quote from Catholic priest Dwight Longenecker, a man who believes the “gay lifestyle is repugnant” and that feminism and homosexuality are “killing” the concept of family.