A GAY youth cannot be banned from taking his boyfriend to a school dance at a Roman Catholic high school, a Canadian judge ruled on Friday.
Marc Hall (17) was granted an injunction by the Superior Court of Justice allowing him to take his 21-year-old boyfriend to the school dance on Friday night at Monsignor John Pereyma Catholic high school in Oshawa, 50 kilometres east of Toronto.
Hall’s lawyer David Corbett said the ruling tells Catholic schools, which are publicly financed, that they can’t discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.
”You shouldn’t be able to do that with anybody, but especially not young people in their care,” Corbett said.
Corbett said the judge’s decision is only an interim ruling, but that the school board has said it wants to argue its position in a trial. Corbett said Hall is prepared to do the same.
”I feel at ease now, just knowing that we’re getting free of discrimination,” Hall said.
Jean-Paul Dumond, his boyfriend, said he felt the ruling gave legitimacy to the couple’s relationship.
”When all this started, it kind of felt like they were putting down our relationship and that we weren’t worth anything to anyone. This just proves them wrong.”
Durham District Catholic School Board lawyer Peter Lauwers has said the school board has the right under the Constitution to run its schools in accordance with Catholic teachings. Hall has the option of going to a non-Catholic public school, if he chooses, Lawyers said.
Corbett argued the board violated the Ontario Human Rights Code, the Education Act and the provincial code of conduct, which all bar discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.
At a meeting last month, Hall asked school trustees to overturn a decision by the principal at Monsignor John Pereyma Catholic high school forbidding him from bringing his male date to next month’s prom. The trustees turned him down.
The school board has said it supports Hall’s right to be a homosexual but it rejects ”a homosexual lifestyle,” such as taking a gay date to the prom. – Sapa-AP