Why do publicly funded Catholic schools exist in Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Alberta? Does the government or the Church actually run them? I speak with Dr. Tonya Callaghan, author of Homophobia in the Hallways, about systemic homophobia in Canadian Catholic schools. We discuss the long struggle to establish Gay-Straight Alliances, the oddly selective enforcement of Catholic doctrine, and the contradiction at the heart of professing compassion for all at the same time as demanding lifetime celibacy from those with same sex attraction.
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Things have obviously changed a lot since l attended publicly-funded Catholic high schools in the early nineties... This is probably because there has been a lot of progress in the broader society over the last thirty years, compelling Catholics to double down so as to mitigate the existential threat their worldview faces. When l was in school, sex ed was explicit and thorough, with abstinence mentioned briefly, but not even in a religious context - it was just pointed out that the only way to avoid STIs and pregnancy 100% was through celibacy! As for homosexuality, our grade 12 religion teacher stated explicitly that if it was shown that homosexuality was innate and not a choice, the Church wouldn't have a leg to stand on in its condemnation...
ReplyDeleteThe reason the religious focus on schools is that they know that's where all the socialization and imprinting of social norms happens - in the peer group, not the home - so if homosexuality (or any other worldview that undermines or contradicts parental beliefs) is normalized for kids up to age 15, that's what will stick... If they lose the kids, Catholicism will disappear!
As for why people can't just live and let live, gays undermine the hierarchical patriarchy because they're not motivated to toe the line by the promise of being allocated some oppressed, dependent woman if they go along with it. So they're a threat to the powers that be, and religion is brought in to disavow them morally/scripturally, and to engender disgust towards them among the general population (sort of like with otherwise pointless food taboos that ensure people from different 'tribes' never break bread together). Proof: Guys generally find girl-on-girl stuff hot, as long as it doesn't interfere with their sexual access. They only take issue with lesbianism if it removes women from the pool of females to be allocated...
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ReplyDeleteTeach evolution? No, not exactly - unless they drop the bit about the "ensoulment" bit of JPII, and the doctrine of original sin, etc. J. Coyne has a whole analysis of how although Catholic doctrine is more scientifically aligned than that of many fundamentalist Protestants, it is still science-denying. (I suspect that this varies from place to place ; I would love to hear more.)
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