Catholic school in Toronto: Boy must be allowed to share bathroom with girls

Writing for LifeSiteNews, Pete Baklinski notes how, "Girls in first grade in a Toronto Catholic school will be sharing a washroom this year with a biological boy whose lesbian parent has chosen to identify him as a 'girl.'

A mother whose young daughter attends the school in the Toronto Catholic District School Board is concerned about the implications of allowing a biological boy to share her daughter’s washroom and changing room, especially as the boy moves into puberty. The mother, under condition of anonymity, shared her concerns with Phil Lees, president of Public Education Advocates for Christian Equity (P.E.A.C.E.), who published a report on his website.

“My greatest concern is that its going to lead to confusion in the minds of children of faith about what’s right or wrong for them,” Lees told LifeSiteNews.

The mother related how the boy attended junior kindergarten with her daughter two years ago. At the end of the year, the lesbian parent withdrew the boy. Now, after a one-year absence, she has reenrolled her child in grade one, claiming he must now be treated as a 'girl.'

The lesbian parent allegedly told the principal that under the federal 'gender identity' Bill C-279, along with the provincial 'gender identity' Bill 33 (Toby’s Law), her child could not be discriminated against and must be allowed to use whatever washroom he chooses.

Bill C-279, which life-and-family leaders warned would open society to a host of “problematic sexual activities,” stalled in the Senate in June 2013 prior to its third and final reading. Parliament being prorogued two months later had the effect of killing all legislation being considered by the government, including Bill C-279. The fate of the bill has yet to be determined.

The lesbian parent used the two bills to insist her biological boy use the girl’s facilities, even though the bills contain nothing about bathroom usage. The lesbian parent was not content with the suggestion to let the boy use the single stall handicap washroom or the teacher’s washroom.

The mother told Lees that the principal instructed the children and parents that the biological boy was now to be treated as a “girl” at the request of the parent.

When the mother approached the principal with her concerns, the principal expressed surprise that the matter was a concern for anyone. The principal heard the mother’s concerns and brought them to the attention of the superintendent of education. The matter has not yet been resolved.

LifeSiteNews asked the Toronto Catholic District School Board for comment, but did not receive a response by press time.

Lees told LifeSiteNews that the mother is 'deathly afraid of being targeted' by activists if she were to go public with her concerns.

According to the mother, even school staff are afraid to say anything about the situation for fear of losing their job or being dragged before a human rights tribunal.

Lees told LifeSiteNews that he believes 'LGBT' activists are using the woman and her boy as a 'test case' to advance the homosexual agenda in Catholic schools.

While Lees said he has “no problem” with persons who express themselves in a way different from their biological makeup, he does have a problem when they force everyone else to comply with their demands.

Lees said the case emphasizes what happens when society rejects God’s ways, such as the creation of human beings as male and female, and replaces them with man-made laws and norms that run contrary to the created order.

'Man desires to rule and to be god,' he said.

'The reasons why we have these problems in our schools is because for the last two or three generations, people of faith have withdrawn. People of faith have become so busy with other aspects of their lives and they don’t know how to reengage.'  See here.

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Deacon Keith Fournier, in an article for Catholic Online a few years ago, wrote: "The 'Gender Identity Movement' is dangerous. It is a part of a broader Cultural Revolution which substitutes an entirely different view of the dignity of the human person, human freedom, human flourishing, human sexuality, marriage and the family and the moral basis of a free society than that which formed Western Civilization."  See here.

Indeed Pope Benedict XVI, in a Christmas Address given in 2008, denounced the contemporary notion that gender is a malleable definition and said, "The Church speaks of the human being as man and woman, and asks that this order is respected."


Fr. Vincent Miceli, S.J., has noted that, "It has been a special scar on the worst pagan cultures and the worst idolatrous religions that they openly attacked the gender identities of the sexes.  They celebrated sexual indulgence, sexual experimentation, sexual symbols, fertility rites, temple prostitution, seasonal sex orgies, sexual abuse and enslavement of young women, girls and boys....But sex is not an accidental characteristic of man and woman.  A human person without sex is a monstrous abstraction.  Sex entails the very identity of each person; sex plunges to the deepest mystery of each person.  Hence the sexes and the vocations pertaining thereto are not interchangeable.  Each person is called to serve God and his fellowman, accepting gladly the sex with which one is endowed and the vocation attached to that sex." (The Antichrist, P. 231).

In the comments section of a previous post, Mr. Michael Cole noted how, "Homosexuals, lesbians and transsexuals are often afflicted by evil spirits. Gender confusion is often a sign of demonic possession. Fr. Malachi Martin recounts the story of a possessed transsexual in his bestselling book 'Hostage to the Devil.' In the chapter titled 'The Virgin and the Girl-Fixer,' he writes, 'At one moment, Father Gerald, the exorcist, was bending over the possessed, Richard/Rita, who had sunk his teeth into his own instep. In the next instant, the glaze in Richard/Rita's eyes broke, melting into a lurid gleam of mockery. Greenish. The teeth loosened their grip on the instep. The mouth opened, baring gums and throat, the tongue protruded, quivering on a stream of gray foam bubbles. The whole face was furrowed in irregular lines, as Richard/Rita broke into peals of laughter. Great buffeting gusts of mocking, jeering, Schadenfreude laughter. Laugter pouring from a belly of amused scorn and contemptuous hate.'"

How quickly we forget this.  Gender confusion represents something more than a cultural revolution.  It is often the result of demonic possession.  The more a culture rejects the Living God and His Commandments, the more it sinks into an abyss of depravity.

Father J. Bryan Hehir: A Corroding and Ambiguous Pluralism Which Leads to Dissolution, Destruction and the Loss of Identity

As reported here, Father J. Bryan Hehir, Secretary for Healthcare and Social Services, has argued that, “We [Catholics] could, on the basis of living in a pluralistic society, remain silent on the contraception question in the public policy area while upholding the Church’s teaching internally.” Father Hehir further argued that such an approach is consistent with Catholic tradition because, “Catholic tradition doesn’t always try to translate internal policy into public policy.”

While it is true that a legitimate pluralism exists within the Church, one which, for example, includes diverse rites and spiritualities as well as theologies which reflect the one faith, a pluralism which leaves room for diverse world views, the sort of pluralism advanced by Fr. Hehir, is dangerous because it can occasion relativism. In the Church, such a pluralism has no place. As Pope John XXIII taught, “..there is no other truth than the one truth she [the Church] treasures…there can be no ‘truths’ in contradiction of it.” (Ad Petri Cathedram, AAS 51 (1959) 513, PE, 263.70). The Synod of Bishops, Second Extraordinary Assembly, recognized this truth when it said that, “The pluralism of fundamentally opposed positions” does not build up the Church but “instead leads to dissolution, destruction and the loss of identity.” (Synod of Bishops, Second Extraordinary Assembly, 1985, Final “Relatio”, 2.C.2, EV 9 (1983-1985) 1764-65, OR, 16 Dec. 1985, 7.).

In his wonderful book entitled “A Crisis of Truth: The Attack on Faith, Morality, and Mission in the Catholic Church,” Ralph Martin explains that, “Pastoral leaders today often fail to exercise their responsibility effectively because they have inadequate models for leadership and employ inadequate criteria to judge their own work and the work of others.

Pastoral passivity is often justified as an appropriate posture for leaders of a ‘pluralist’ Church. Indeed, pluralism in the Church can be a very good thing. The life of the Church is enriched by a certain kind of diversity in cultural expression, pastoral approach, and even theological and philosophical expression of the faith. Yet pluralism is legitimate only if it involves diverse expressions of the one faith as definitively interpreted by the teaching authority of the Church over the centuries.

Today, calls for ‘pluralism’ are often pleas to abandon the one faith. Many of those who work for the ‘pluralistic’ Church of the future, in contrast to the ‘monolithic’ Church of the past, are actually working for the destruction of the Church and any meaningful measure of unity of faith. Pope Paul VI called this kind of indiscriminate pluralism, the kind that lacks any clear criteria, ‘corroding and ambiguous.’ It is indeed at work in the Church today.

Often an uncritical pluralism is combined with a conception of the pastoral leader as someone who is a ‘unifier.’ Of course, those responsible for families, parishes, and other segments of God’s people need to work to unify their people. But they should not achieve unity at just any price. The unity appropriate to God’s people is a unity based on a common adherence to Christian truth and the person of Christ. Saying ‘yes’ to the teaching of the Church in areas of faith and morals is to say ‘no’ to those who undermine and challenge them. Unity is based on truth. Yet many pastoral leaders today are presiding over a ‘unity’ which contains contradictory elements, a ‘unity’ which includes both acceptance and rejection of Christ, His Word, and the teaching of the Church. To tolerate the corruption of Christian truth in the name of unity or pluralism is to make a mockery of the genuine function and role of pastoral authority. It is, in fact, to preside over that corroding of Christian faith which Paul VI warned about.

Sometimes such corroding pluralism is tolerated because of a muddled or vague understanding of the wheat and the tares parable and other scripture passages that talk of problems within the Church. In this connection it is frequently said that: ‘The Catholic Church is a church of sinners, a broad church that includes everybody; it is not a sect.’ Besides often incorporating an imprecise and often incoherent use of the sociological categories of ‘church’ and ‘sect,’ such formulations are, more seriously, based on a misinterpretation of such scripture passages. The point of such passages is often to describe actual or future situations that can never be remedied simply by human effort, but can ultimately only be fully resolved by an action of God himself. The point of such passages though is not to counsel the advocacy of a lukewarm, passive, indifferent vision of Church life, in which the corruption of Christian truth and God’s people is benignly presided over.

Such false applications of the parable have been common previously in Church history to justify a distorted approach to Church life, and St. Augustine addressed this situation squarely:

‘In answer to these persons I would say, first of all, that in reading the testimonies of Sacred Scripture which indicate that there is presently, or foretell that there will be in the future, a mingling of good and evil persons in the Church, anyone who understands these testimonies in such a way that he supposes the diligence and severity of discipline ought to be relaxed altogether and be omitted is not taught by those same writings but is deceived by his own conjecture. The fact that Moses, the servant of God, bore most patiently that mixture of good and evil among the chosen people did not prevent him from punishing many, even with the sword….In our times, when the sword has ceased to be visible in the discipline of the Church, what must be done is pointed out by degradations and excommunications.’” (A Crisis of Truth, citing St. Augustine, “Faith and Works,” 1737a).

The Council of Trent teaches definitively that the Gospel is the source of all saving truth and authentic moral teaching. As Catholics we are not called to “remain silent” about the Gospel in the name of “pluralism.” We are called, as Dei Verbum of the Second Vatican Council reminds us, “..to hold fast to the traditions” which we “have learned either by word of mouth or by letter (cf. 2 Thes 2:15), and to fight in defense of the faith handed on once and for all (cf. Jude 1:3)…” (Dei Verbum, No. 8).

UN Committee Asserts Special Rights for "Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity."

New York: C-FAM

"A UN human rights committee recently told UN member states they must grant broad new human rights on the basis of 'sexual orientation and gender identity' by making sweeping changes to to their national laws, policies, and changing practices and attitudes within families and cultural institutions, or else they will be in 'violation' of their obligations under international law."


As I explained in a previous post, the homosexual hate movement has nothing to do with civil rights. It is, rather, an attempt to impose a moral revolution. Writing in the Chicago Free Press, even homosexual activist Paul Varnell admitted this. He wrote, "The fundamental controverted issue about homosexuality is not discrimination, hate crimes or domestic partnerships, but the morality of homosexuality. Even if gays obtain non-discrimination laws, hate crimes law and domestic partnership benefits, those can do little to counter the underlying moral condemnation which will continue to fester beneath the law and generate hostility, fuel hate crimes, support conversion therapies, encourage gay youth suicide and inhibit the full social acceptance that is our goal. On the other hand, if we convince people that homosexuality is fully moral, then all their inclination to discriminate, engage in gay-bashing or oppose gay marriage disappears. Gay youths and adults could readily accept themselves. So the gay movement, whether we acknowledge it or not, is not a civil rights movement, not even a sexual liberation movement, but a moral revolution aimed at changing people's view of homosexuality." (Paul Varnell, "Defending Our Morality," Chicago Free Press, Aug 16, 2000, http://indegayforum.org/authors/varnell/varnell37.html.

Why is this assertion by a UN human rights committee especially troubling for Christians? Because, as explained here, the International Criminal Court (ICC) could eventually be used to try "the Pope and other religious leaders" - and Christians in general - who oppose abortion and homosexuality.