Tuesday June 29, 2010
Analysis: False Gospel of ‘Equity’ Lures Ontario Catholic School Boards
TORONTO, Ontario, June 29, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Many parents are raising serious concerns about what they see as the ready willingness of far too many Catholic School Boards across Ontario to get into bed with the heavy-handed, often dangerous ideologies of the Ministry of Education’s “Equity and Inclusivity” initiatives.
One of the first major waves of these initiatives was seen in the Ministry of Education’s recent attempt to introduce a controversial new “Health and Physical Education” curriculum into grades K-8, by September 2010. This curriculum was drawn up from the recommendations of the ministry’s “strategy” document, also known as PP119, in which all school boards, including Catholic, would be mandated to present a plan to implement the “Equity and Inclusivity” doctrine. It was only after a backlash from many sectors that Premier Dalton McGuinty decided to shelve the problematic document that was supported by a myriad of homosexual lobby groups.
Despite opposition from parents, Church and other religious leaders across Ontario, some Catholic school boards were ready to accept “carte blanche” the equity “health” curriculum. Linda Staudt, a superintendant for the Windsor/Essex Catholic District School Board, was said to have “praised the contents of the proposed curriculum,” according to the Windsor Star. Staudt stated that “the entire document really does an excellent job in promoting healthy, active living … the family life component is just part of it.” Amazing comments coming from a superintendant of Catholic education: the family life component encouraged the normality of masturbation and anal sex, and put the homosexualist lifestyle at par with traditional marriage.
Interestingly, Staudt was joined by two trustees of her board in attending the ministry’s Equity Symposium in Toronto this month. No doubt she will be formative in establishing the final “equity” policy for the board, the draft for which they are currently requesting feedback.
What many parents are not aware of is that even though the “Health” curriculum was pulled, the “Equity and Inclusivity Initiatives” for all three school boards are going ahead full throttle. Boards are expected to bring completion to their draft policies by September of 2010. This policy is to be accountable, transparent and must meet the politically correct ethos of “equity and inclusivity” as envisioned by the former Minister of Education, Kathleen Wynne, who is openly homosexual and who piloted the whole “Equity” initiative.
Recently, the Ministry of Education, through the Ontario Education Services Corporation, invited representatives from every school board across Ontario to attend a symposium in Toronto on June 17, 2010. This symposium was stacked with representatives from the controversial Ontario Human Rights Commission, the O.E.S.C. and other groups that support the homosexualist manifesto.
The ministry held workshops with charismatic guest speakers such as Chris D’Souza, to “educate” and “help” boards enforce their plan. Among other stipulations, the plan requires boards to recognize sexual orientation as grounds for non-discrimination, “regardless of their moral traditions and religious principles on the subject,” as explained in recent LSN articles.
Translation: The Ontario Government under Dalton McGuinty, Leona Dombrowsky, the current Minister of Education, and Chris D’Souza’s aggressive homosexualist lobby advocates from AMENO and Harmony know what’s best for Ontario families and our children! If you have a problem with your “heterosexist” and “homophobic” views, using the vernacular of the “Equity” revolutionaries, they will be more than happy to “unlearn” you – a nifty t-shirt slogan often seen on D’Souza, during his hundreds of seminars and workshops presented to school boards, Catholic included, across Ontario. “Even homophobia needs to be addressed, regardless of what Catholics believe about the sexual orientation,” said D’Souza, the chair of both the Equity Summit Group and the Antiracist Multicultural Education Network of Ontario, according to Niagarathisweek.com.
D’Souza, the former Equity and Diversity Officer of the Dufferin-Peel Catholic School Board, energetically sells McGuinty’s golden equity calf, piggy-backing the controversial pro-homosexualist doctrine on the important issues of anti-bullying and anti-racism within the schools. Anyone, teacher, student or parent, who speaks out against this multi-faceted sex agenda or the Ministry of Education’s “strategy” is immediately tarred with the images of racists and bigots, and shut down with smear tactics all too familiar in the anti-life abortion movement. Once you start to peel away at the thin veneer of politically correct ethics, you begin to behold a much more sinister truth behind the homosexualist Trojan horse, slowly working its way into our children’s classrooms.
At the Ottawa Catholic School Board’s website, occdsb.on.ca, there is a link under the tab Equity and Inclusivity Education Strategy, that sources one of D’Souza’s Power Point Presentations. In it, he states that every educator has a “moral obligation to engage in politically correct and inclusive language in every conversation you are part of.” He then lists the potential realms of marginalization that we are all called to build special rights for, in our Catholic, French and public school boards, and every aspect of society. Those “marginalized” people include but are not limited to “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual, Transgendered, Two-Spirited, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual and Ally.”
Given D’Souza’s clear acceptance of very un-Catholic positions on human sexuality, (see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, art. 2331-2400), one might ask why so many Catholic School Board leaders are bringing him in to form the minds and consciences of students and staff. Are the Gospel values of the dignity of every human person and the practice of authentic social justice, as taught in Scripture, social encyclicals and the writings of the saints, not enough? Are we to replace the glorious deposit of Faith, built on the shoulders of giants with the shallow ethos of equity?
D’Souza states, as quoted in Niagarathisweek.com that “the Jesus Christ I follow is one where every child feels welcomed.” The real question that parents should be asking Chris D’Souza, and indeed the Senior Administrators and Trustees of their school boards, especially Catholic, is whether or not we are to welcome and promote all ideologies in the classroom. Is there such a thing as absolute inclusion or equity? Or are we to decide what should be included based upon whether it is grounded in truth, goodness, natural law and the common good of all people involved?
The Catholic School system’s response to this question ought to be crystal clear! It is not what Jesus Christ Chris D’Souza follows that should be our concern, but rather the true Jesus of the Gospels who both loves the sinner and hates the sin; the Lord who told Mary, the adulteress, that she was forgiven but to go and sin no more. It is that same Christ who said to “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Matthew 7:15). Though D’Souza has a lot of good messages in his presentations, it the hidden leaven within that ultimately spoils the whole loaf in the bread of life of the Catholic Separate School System.
Today’s homosexualist movement that is being sold wholesale by mega media networks and lauded by countless celebrities, is not at all about tolerance or to simply “live and let live.” This movement is completely intolerant, inequitable and un-inclusive of any person or institution that does not put on the pink shirt of homosexualist pride and welcome this counter-Christian indoctrination with open arms. This movement is an aggressive, radical propagandist machine, decades in the making, that is forcing its agenda into the sanctity of everyone’s home, into the youngest of children’s classrooms and now even into your Church, Synagogue and Mosque.
Make no mistake, this is a culture war, and the hearts and minds of our children are at the very center of the battlefield.