Homosexual Prom 'Date' Stirs Church-State Debate in Canada

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The headline on Canada's national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, read, “The Boy Who Beat The Catholic Church,” and some Catholics wonder whether that could be the case.

A 17-year-old homosexual student at an Ontario Catholic high school is waging a very public battle to bring his 21-year-old boyfriend to this month's school prom. The battle is pitting the school board — which refused him permission — against just about every other group willing to get publicly involved, including politicians, homosexual rights groups and community leaders.

Of broader concern is whether the pressure being exerted on the school board marks a new threshold in state interference in Church matters in Canada.

The controversy surrounds Marc Hall, a student at Monsignor John Pereyma Catholic Secondary School in Oshawa, Ontario, who asked for his principal's permission to bring his male partner to the May 10 prom. When the principal said no, Hall went public.

At an open meeting April 8, after hearing from Hall and his supporters, the Durham Catholic District School Board stood behind the principal, saying the teachings of the Catholic Church on homosexuality are clear and well-understood.

Board chair Mary Ann Martin said at the meeting the Church “accepts homosexuals as persons who should be treated like any other person: with respect, compassion and sensitivity.” At the same time, she said, “homosexual behavior is unacceptable and cannot be approved.”

A storm of protest, including press conferences and public denunciations of the board, has greeted the decision. At its annual gala in Ottawa, the homosexual rights group Egale gave Hall a special award.

In addition to several homosexual members of Parliament present at that function, Canada's Industry Minister Allan Rock, a Catholic, endorsed Hall's campaign. “Marc Hall is a young man who didn't seek this confrontation,” Rock told the crowd. “This issue was thrust upon him — a 17-year-old young man, going about his life, who met discrimination along the way.”

Dalton McGuinty, the leader of the opposition Liberal Party in Ontario and a Catholic, also weighed in on the issue. He called the board's decision “unfair,” saying it “offends the freedoms that have made Canada a welcome home for people in all their diversity.”

Neither Rock nor McGuinty accepted an invitation from National Catholic Register to explain how they reconcile their stance with their faith.

Opposition

Meanwhile, the teen-ager's crusade does not have the universal support of homosexuals. John McKellar, a homosexual and head of the Canadian organization Homosexuals Opposed to Pride Extremism, said he has “thorough contempt” for the way Hall is being manipulated.

McKellar accused special interests and the media of “canonizing and distracting a naive 17-year-old,” with the goal of making the Catholic Church conform to their “self-styled progressive enlightenment and feel-good, secular fundamentalism.”

Toronto Auxiliary Bishop Anthony Meagher is also defending the board. In a letter to McGuinty he said, “There is no doubt in my mind that if permission by a principal in our Catholic school system is given for any 17-year-old boy to take another male as his 'date’ for the prom this will be a clear and positive approval not just of the boy's ‘orientation,’ but of his adopting a homosexual lifestyle.”

He said many young teen-agers who question their sexuality will one day “thank the faith or the institution that encouraged them not to pursue these inclinations, which, as it often turns out, are not a true indication of their sexual orientation.”

Instead, however, Hall is suing. His lawyer, David Corbett, wants an injunction to force the board to allow Hall and his boyfriend to attend.

Corbett, who is offering his services for free, is described by McKellar as a “well-practiced litigant for gay and lesbian issues and thus is motivated more by self-interest than by genuine compassion.”

The court case will be heard this month, just before the prom.

Amid all the talk of rights, there has been little discussion of the rights of a Catholic school to establish policies according to its religious beliefs. In fact, some critics say it is time to dismantle Ontario's constitutionally protected and publicly funded Catholic school system.

Douglas Elliott, a homosexual lawyer acting as an intervener in Hall's case, said if Hall loses his court case “people will begin to question the special rights that the Catholic Church has under our Constitution — whether our law should permit public funding of religious schools that enforce discrimination that is contrary to the public policy of Canada.”

‘Orchestrated Campaign’

Talk like that doesn't surprise Thomas Langan, president of the Catholic Civil Rights League. He said that the battle against the school board is “a well-orchestrated campaign which we've been expecting, the beginning of an effort to destroy the Catholic public schools in Ontario.”

While Langan does not object to public leaders involving themselves in the prom debate, he is alarmed at the “unbelievable one-sidedness” in the way it's being presented, preventing the Church from defending its position.

Michael Markwick, a Catholic communications consultant who formerly worked for the Ontario Human Rights Commission, said the issue is graver than one of politicians simply speaking their minds.

“The intervention of politicians into this issue is, I think, a form of grandstanding because ultimately in law the state does not have power to bully religious communities,” he said.

Religious believers have a right to “preserve their identities and shouldn't be subject to pressure to be something they're not,” Mark-wick added..

While discussion of Hall's rights to associate with whomever he wishes seems to be trumping the Church's right to hold to the faith, Markwick pointed out that Canadian courts have refused to establish such a hierarchy of rights. More often, court judgments have reflected a “balancing” of rights, such as the recent Trinity Western University case, in which the right of a Christian university to require that its students abide by biblical standards of behavior was recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Said Markwick, “I think what they've found again and again is that public power can't be used to change religious practice.”

Paul Schratz writes from Vancouver, British Columbia.