Faye Sonier said the board’s equity policy is part of a widespread effort to promote a “new diversity” that can only operate by excluding contrary beliefs.
“To include the EIE policy in our schools will not be a direct attack on a teacher, or a student or a school. This would be a direct attack on an entire religion,” said Kayla Martin.
Don Hutchinson urged trustees "not to allow the unique nature and character of a Catholic education to be infringed upon by the actions of the Government of Ontario.”
“It is therefore likely that nothing less than legal action against the Ministry of Education will stop it from imposing this radical agenda upon Catholic school boards.”
The group also called on the Toronto Catholic District School Board to pass amendments to its equity policy designed to protect Catholic teaching in the schools.
Anti-discrimination policies are a real danger when they require schools “not just to affirm their students but to ‘affirm’ various orientations and lifestyles that are contrary to Biblical beliefs,” argues Faye Sonier of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.
Two other presenters at the June 16 Toronto Catholic board meeting similarly invoked the bishops in opposition to parents' demands for more explicit protections for authentic Catholic teaching in the board's controversial equity policy.
A small, but stalwart group of Catholic parents gathered at a prayer vigil June 12, as part of efforts to convince Ontario's Catholic bishops to reconsider support for a government equity strategy.