On Campus

Trustees vote to lift ban on gay student groups

New inclusion policy to be drafted

Trustees voted Tuesday night to repeal a ban on gay student groups implemented in the fall by the Halton Catholic District School Board. It was the first time the board met after the ban prompted international attention including from Perez Hilton.

“We as students are asked to be chaste so sexual activity at this point, whether heterosexual or homosexual, should really be moot,” trustee and grade 11 student, Clarisse Schneider, told the board. The ban had been implemented by the previous school board, after new trustees were elected but before they officially took their posts.

Despite a new policy in Ontario demanding schools devise inclusion policies that permit gay student groups, the old board was apparently acting on the advice from the Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario that had sent a letter warning that gay student groups “imply a self-identification with sexual orientation that is often premature among high school students.”

Trustees voted 6-2 to recommend lifting the ban while a new inclusion policy is drafted, but the entire board has yet to be consulted on the vote.

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