GAY TRUTH

The Toronto Catholic District School Board, after a long and heated debate, voted to adopt four gender terms into its code of conduct: "gender identity," "gender expression," "family status," and "marital status".  The chairman of the board, who supported the 8 to 4 vote, stated that "we need to celebrate our differences and make sure our children from the LGBTQ community and families from the LGBTQ community are supported and welcomed".  This view, however, is contrary to that of the archdiocese, which responded: "We do not accept the view of the human person which underlies this terminology since that view is not compatible with our faith." This is a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. Students at Catholic schools are equally protected by law and school policy from unjust discrimination, ridicule, and assault and battery. Since everyone is equally protected, there is no need to give special attention to any s

Sounds bad. Australia’s new religious freedom bill “hands a sword to people of faith.” We know what they’ll do. They will certainly use it to cut down everyone they disagree with and put down everyone they disapprove of. It sounds really bad. The end of freedom in Australia. But wait a minute, who says so? Looking at the Australian press, it’s LGBT advocates and moral liberals. They’re people, as we Americans know so well, who see the quietest statement of Christian morality as hateful, knuckle-dragging bigotry. So maybe it’s not so bad after all. Maybe the ruling party just wants to create a level playing field. Maybe the party wants to balance the right of LGBT people to celebrate their sexuality with other people’s right to say that it’s not God’s will.  The Real Story What’s the real story? Australian Attorney-General Christian Porter introduced the bill on August 29. Three months earlier, Rugby Australia fired player Israel Folau for an Instagram post claiming “hell awa

A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction allowing a Catholic adoption agency to continue operating according to its religious beliefs. His decision came just four days before the agency’s contract with the state was set to expire. District Judge Robert Jonker ruled in favor of St. Vincent Catholic Charities and against Michigan’s lesbian Attorney General, Dana Nessel, who before taking office in January had pledged to terminate state contracts with religious foster and adoption agencies that refused to place children in homes with same-sex couples.  In his ruling, Jonker said that Nessel had “targeted” the Catholic agency and that Nessel “is at the very heart of the case,” have accused proponents of religious exemptions from LGBT household placements as “discriminatory” and “‘hate mongers’ who disliked gay people more than they cared about children.” “The State’s real goal is not to promote non-discriminatory child placements, but to stamp out St. Vincent’s religiou

The Christian owner of a Kentucky print shop who has spent years fighting for his right not to create “gay pride” T-shirts has taken his case to the state Supreme Court. Blaine Adamson is the owner of Hands On Originals Christian Outfitters, a Lexington company that advertises "high quality, customized Christian apparel.” For the past several years, he has been fighting the Lexington Human Rights Commission over his polite refusal of the Gay and Lesbian Services Organization’s (now called the Pride Community Services Organization) request to print shirts for the Lexington Pride Festival. The Kentucky Court of Appeals sided with Adamson in 2017, and the Kentucky Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case Friday, NBC News reported. “For the last seven years, the government has tried to punish me for declining to print a message that violated my conscience,” Adamson told the public outside the court chamber. “So far, the lower courts have upheld my freedom as a creative

Lynn Starkey worked at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis. In May, however, the Roman Catholic school fired Starkey as a guidance counselor after officials discovered that she is married to a woman. In July, Starkey, 63, sued the school and the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, claiming, in part, that they discriminated against her on the basis of her sexual orientation. In May, the school's principal notified Starkey, who has been married to her spouse since 2015, that her contract would not be renewed, stating in a letter that civil unions are in violation of her contract and “contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church.” The archdiocese — which is also being sued by a gay teacher who was recently fired from a different Catholic school in Indianapolis — claims that it has a “constitutional right to hire leaders who support the schools’ religious mission.” "Catholic schools exist to communicate the Catholic faith to the next generation," the archdiocese sa

The success or failure of Israel Folau’s claim against Rugby Australia rests on one central, unresolved legal question. Just how far does somebody’s right to religious expression extend ? Amid all the drama and fury of the broader debate, it is easy to forget that Folau’s case is about something as dry as employment contract law.  Many of the questions Australians have argued over so vociferously in recent days — for instance, whether Folau is justified in asking the public for donations — will simply have no bearing on the final outcome. So what will? How will this argument actually be decided?  Professor Anthony Forsyth,  an expert in workplace law  at RMIT University, to better understand the key elements of the case. RUGBY AUSTRALIA’S ARGUMENT Rugby Australia terminated Folau’s contract in May after a tribunal found he had breached its code of conduct with an Instagram post telling gay people, along with others “living in sin”, that they would go to hell unless they

Did the Supreme Court punt or pass on religious freedom, or did it deliver a kick in the pants to lower courts? It’s tough to tell from the competing media reports, but the owners of the now-defunct Oregon bakery Sweetcakes by Melissa are off the hook for $135,000 in fines. The court vacated a lower-court ruling that upheld the fines against Melissa and Aaron Klein for refusing to work a same-sex wedding. The Supreme Court declined Monday to decide whether an Oregon baker can refuse on religious grounds to design a cake for a homosexual wedding – a question it carefully sidestepped last year. The case would have given the court’s conservative majority the chance to expand upon its narrow 2018 ruling in favor of a Colorado baker. That decision did not apply beyond the case of Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, who the justices said was discriminated against by state regulators. The new case involves Sweetcakes by Melissa, a custom cake business operated by Melissa a