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Officials at the Ottawa Catholic School Board allowed two Grade 6 girls to move forward with a planned presentation on gay rights after it was made clear that issues pertaining to “gay marriage” would not be included in the presentation, according to the board’s internal correspondence.

The board’s concerns about public reaction following an initial ban on the presentation, including pressure from the “religious right,” presumably to keep the ban in place, are outlined in 23 pages of emails between trustees and board employees. The documents were released under Ontario’s Freedom of Information law to a parent who has children in OCSB schools.

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Julian Hanlon, director of education at the OCSB, confirmed on Tuesday that the board had concerns about the “age appropriateness” of discussing same-sex marriages with students as young as nine.

“The principal’s initial concern was about whether the topic was age-appropriate. That was the concern around gay marriage, how do you speak to grade 4s and 5s about gay marriage?” he said. “The issue then became, that is not what the girls wanted. The girls wanted to take the approach of gay rights as it relates to bullying. We said, there is no problem doing that.”