By Hilary White
Toronto, April 15, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Ontario education minister has appointed a “Safe Schools Action Team” to ensure that homosexual students are not subject to any “homophobia” from teachers, staff or fellow students. The government watchdog group will be led by Liz Sandals, the Liberal MPP for Guelph and the former president of the Ontario Public School Board Association.
Kathleen Wynne, the Ontario Education Minister and a lesbian political activist said, “What I have asked them to do is to go back to stakeholders in the community and ask about sexual assault, gender or attacks on the basis of sexual orientation.”
“We haven’t tackled that as deeply as we’d like.”
Sandals told the homosexual news magazine X-Tra that her group would not be seeking evidence that “homophobia” exists in schools. “We don’t need to be convinced there’s an issue. We don’t want to waste our time demonstrating there’s a problem. What we’re trying to identify is people who have solutions.”
Citing a study by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Sandals said, “CAMH takes you away from the misconception that this is only a problem in a few Toronto schools.”
“Homophobia can be a huge problem in rural schools,” she added.
According to homosexual activists “homophobia” is identified with the expression of any opposition to the gay activist political agenda, or, more specifically, the expression of religious or moral objections to homosexual activity.
Sandals, however, indicated that she did not need to wait for actual statistical evidence of bullying in schools based on “sexual orientation”. She told X-Tra that reports of “physical bullying” of any sort should be enough to convince officials of homophobia. According to the CAMH study 32 percent of boys in Grade 9 and 16 percent of girls reported physical bullying by members of the same sex.
“You could read into that that some of it could be homophobic bullying,” Sandals said.
The news follows previous announcements from Wynne that the Ontario government would be cracking down on what it says is an ongoing problem with “homophobia” in schools. In March, Wynne hired a “homophobia” watchdog, Dr. Karen Mock, an expert in hate crimes, to monitor Ontario schools.
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Lesbian Ontario Education Minister Hires “Homophobia” Watchdog for Schools
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/mar/08031309.html
Homosexual Activists Consider Targeting Private Christian Schools for “Homophobia”
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/feb/07022706.html
Homosexuals Now Hold Both Key Ontario Government Ministries: Education and Health
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/oct/06101107.html