News

OTTAWA, August 29, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Over 100 teachers, principals and trustees from the Ottawa public school board joined about 1,600 homosexual marchers in this year’s “pride” parade held in the nation’s capital on Sunday.

The public school board also provided a yellow school bus decked out in rainbow flags that led the parade.

Ottawa-Carleton District school board (OCDSB) trustee Donna Blackburn, who represents the Barrhaven-Knoxdale-Merivale area and is openly lesbian, told the media she encouraged the board to publicly support the parade.

“After I was sworn in, I approached the director and the board of education about the idea of doing this, and they were very supportive, and for me it was just a natural progression of what the board’s been doing for many, many years, supporting gay, lesbian, transgendered and bisexual youth,” Blackburn told CTV News earlier this month.

The school’s inclusion the parade appears to have touched a nerve with local parents. In the comments section under one CTV news report on the school’s participation, an overwhelming number of commenters decried what they said was the misuse of tax dollars, and the school board’s misguided promotion of the homosexual agenda.

“As an OCDSB employee, I think this is disgusting,” wrote one commenter. “As a parent, do you really want to see your son’s teacher dressed in chaps and a leather thong dancing to YMCA? And don’t tell me the gay pride parade isn’t like that. We are forced to see it on the news every year.”

“I am offended by this action,” wrote another. “The school board has removed the celebrating of Christian holidays or even disscussing (sic) them in schools yet other choices of religion are. They don’t properly support students who are being bullied because of a learning disability or who choose to abstain from sexual activity. But will support Gay choice.”

But while waiting for the parade to begin the principal of Cairine Wilson Secondary School, Kevin Gilmore, told the Ottawa Citizen, “I’m really proud of the board taking this position, and proud of the turnout,” pointing out that twenty years ago the school board would not have participated in such a parade.

Onlookers at the event were treated to showers of condoms, while participants, many of them dressed in leather and sadomasochistic paraphernalia, or in their underwear and in some cases topless or completely nude, marched down Wellington Street to city hall.

Ottawa media reported that prior to the parade a group of about 50 homosexuals gathered on Parliament Hill with a list of 44 demands that included freedom from criminal prosecution for individuals with HIV infections who fail to disclose their disease to partners with whom they have unprotected sex.

Homosexual activist Michael Burtch told the Ottawa Citizen that the law “does not stop the spread of HIV and in fact helps it flourish.” Burtch added that he himself is infected with HIV.

Contact info:

Jennifer Adams, Director of Education
Ottawa-Carleton District School Board
133 Greenbank Rd., Ottawa, ON K2H 6L3
Phone: 613-596-8252
Fax:  613-820-6968
Email: [email protected]