Catholic school bans rainbows

Homophobic Catholic school says NO to rainbows

This is an extreme posture for the school to be sure and an excellent example of homophobia. Among the more discussed forms are institutionalized homophobia (e.g. religious and state-sponsored), lesbophobia – the intersection of homophobia and sexism directed against lesbians, and internalized homophobia – a form of homophobia among people who experience same-sex attraction regardless of whether or not they identify as LGBT and it looks like this school qualifies on more than one count.

One Canadian Catholic school went a step further than banning the word gay: It banned rainbows at a recent anti-homophobia event. “We brought signs and posters with rainbows, and we were told that we can’t put them up,” the founder of St. Joseph Catholic Secondary School’s unofficial gay-straight alliance (GSA) tells Xtra. The district school board “said rainbows are associated with Pride. There’s so many other things that a rainbow could be. It’s ridiculous.” Catholic school says NO to cupcakes

Despite a ban on any rainbows at the St Joseph Catholic Secondary School anti-homophobia event June 3, the student organizers found a creative way to get their message across: hiding rainbows inside the cupcakes.

Even then, the controversy wasn’t over: The cupcakes raised about $200 for charity, which the students wanted to donate to an LGBT youth line. But the school board “said no,” the founder says, and instructed them to donate it to a Catholic homeless shelter instead. The board had also rejected many of the materials provided for the event by political action committee Queer Ontario, including anti-homophobia booklets and an AIDS Committee of Toronto flyer. “We proposed a whole bunch of resources and only about four got approved, and the ones that were approved were censored,” the founder says.

This is one of the most disturbing stories I have ever read. It just proves yet another point when it comes to organized religion: discrimination and prejudice rules. In this case, Mother Nature, through her rainbows, has also fallen victim to this vicious homophobia.

What do you think about this outrage? Should Catholic schools, or any schools for that matter be allowed to discriminate against children?