Father appeals ruling upholding forced LGBT indoctrination in Ontario schools
A father of two is appealing an Ontario
judge’s decision upholding the Hamilton Wentworth District School Board’s
refusal to disclose when morally sensitive subjects such as homosexuality and
abortion are discussed.
Steve Tourloukis says the decision denied his
parental rights, describing it as “a human rights disaster” and “systemic
discrimination against Christians.”
Tourloukis took the public school board to
court in 2012 seeking an order that the board tell him in advance what his
children will be taught about controversial subjects.
He also sought an order that the school board
allow him to pull his children from class if he deemed they would be exposed to
what would be “false teaching” according to his Greek Orthodox faith.
But four years and $70,000 later, Tourloukis’
battle ended with Justice Robert Reid of the Ontario
Superior Court throwing
out his application, including his request that the court declare that as a
parent, he has final authority over what his children are taught in public
school.
Tourloukis’ case dates back to his 2010
request for
religious accommodation, when his daughter was in junior kindergarten and his
son in Grade 2, which the HWDSB denied on the basis of its Equity Policy.
The board’s refusal, Tourloukis argued,
violated his Charter right of freedom of religion and constituted
discrimination under Ontario’s Human Rights Code.
Now the Hamilton dentist has decided to fight
on, and his lawyer Albertos Polizogopoulos filed notice with the Ontario Court
of Appeal on December 23, arguing Reid made several substantive errors in law
in the 24-page decision he issued a month earlier.
“I have to appeal,” Tourloukis told
LifeSiteNews in an email.
“This is a judicial endorsement of systemic
discrimination against Christians. It’s a human rights disaster right here in
Canada.”
What he found especially galling was Reid’s
proffered remedy that he simply pull his children from public school, noted
Tourloukis.
“I will not have my children cleansed from the
school system.”
“The decision to appeal is good news for
parents across the province and Canada,” noted Lou Iacobelli, chair of the
Parental Rights in Education Defence Fund, which has been bankrolling the
landmark case.
“Mr. Tourloukis is fighting for all parents.”
Board’s violation of rights is “not trivial” but “reasonable”: judge
In his November
23 ruling, Reid conceded the board’s interference with
Tourloukis’ Charter rights of religious freedom was “not trivial nor
insubstantial.”
He also accepted that Tourloukis believed it
would be a sin if he did not protect his children from “false teachings,” which
include “moral relativism and issues around human sexuality.”
Tourloukis had “demonstrated his religious
tenets are significantly at odds with numerous aspects of the Board’s Equity
Policy including, but not solely, as regards sexual orientation,” wrote Reid.
But because of the board’s statutory
obligations — particularly those outlined in the Equity and Inclusive Education
Strategy launched by openly lesbian Premier Kathleen Wynne while she served as
education minister in 2009 — its decision to refuse Tourloukis’ request
struck a “reasonable” balance between his Charter rights and “Charter protected
values of equality and multiculturalism,” he ruled.
The board’s decision not to grant Tourloukis’
request was based in its Equity Policy, in which it “committed to ensure that
classroom practices are anti-homophobic and anti-heterosexist,” wrote the
judge.
Judge’s ruling gives Wynne carte blanche in schools
Left unchallenged, Reid’s ruling will give
governments — in this case, the Liberals led by now Premier Wynne, who has been
pushing sex-ed and a pro-LGBTQ agenda in the schools — the legal leverage to
overrule parents’ constitutional rights, warned Tourloukis.
“There is now NOTHING stopping the radical
Kathleen Wynne government. She has carte
blanche to
teach little kids anything she wants. We have to appeal,” he told LifeSiteNews.
“This terrible decision will affect generations of Christian children.”
The Liberal government intervened in the
Tourloukis case, as did the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO).
With the HWDSB, Liberals and the union lawyers
outnumbering him six to one, Polizogopoulos argued the case before Reid on June
23, 2016.
He emphasized that Tourloukis did not object
to his children receiving factual information, nor to students talking about
these matters. But he did want to know when and how these subjects would be
conveyed in the classroom, because teachers are authority figures “and hold a
very special place in the eyes of children,” he said.
Reid, however, concurred with the ETFO’s
argument that having to give advance notice would place an “undue burden” on
teachers.
That’s because the “requirements for gender
equity, antiracist….and respect for people of all sexual orientations and
gender identities” are “so fully integrated” in the curriculum it would be
virtually impossible to know when these matters would come up.
Reid sided with the Liberal government and the
ETFO in ruling that having Tourloukis’ children leave class would “be contrary
to the values of inclusion and well-being, and could lead to feelings of
exclusion or marginalization by students.”
Isolating children was “antithetical to the
competing legislative mandate and the Charter values favouring inclusivity,
equality and multiculturalism,” he wrote.
“Inclusivity” not a Charter value: appeal
In his notice to appeal, Polizogopoulos argues
in part that Reid erred in law by concluding that “inclusivity” is a Charter
value; that allowing Tourloukis’ children to leave the classroom would “engage
competing Charter values” and that the Tourloukis children’s Charter rights
were in competition with those of merely “hypothetical children.”
He also asserts Reid erred in law by
concluding he had no jurisdiction to rule the school board decision was
discrimination under Ontario’s Human Rights Code.
Reid further erred, Polizogopoulos contends,
in providing no interim accommodation for Tourloukis other than “proposing the
harsh option to exit the public system.”
Indeed, Reid’s suggestion smacks of hypocrisy,
according to Tourloukis.
Even though the judge admitted the board
violated his Charter rights, Reid ruled that its decision was reasonable
“because allowing opt-outs would be antithetical to inclusivity,
equality and multiculturalism,” observed Tourloukis.
“And then this hypocritical judicial guardian
of inclusivity,
equality and multiculturalism suggests that I should opt my kids out of the
public school system.”
Appeal could cost $30,000
“The judge essentially failed to respect the
applicant's right to religious freedom and parental autonomy,” he noted.
“He said to Mr. Tourloukis, and by inference
to every parent in Canada, that he should send his children to a private school
or to homeschool. The judge tells the applicant that the public school system
can no longer serve him. But wait a minute! It is parents who support public
education through taxation.”
Iacobelli estimated that the appeal could cost
up to $30,000.
“One of the big roadblocks to an appeal is the
cost. Government and school boards have lots of taxpayer money while an
individual parent or family must fundraise,” he added.
He urged those who could donate to do so
through the PRIEF website.
“Those who have already donated, we thank you for standing up and defending
parental rights and religious freedom,” Iacobelli noted.
“We also thank and pray for Steve Tourloukis
and his family for leading the battle to defend parental rights and Christian
values (religious freedom) in Ontario and Canada for all parents.”
