Thursday, June 1, 2023

UPDATED: No Pride In York

 


Although I make no claim to psychic powers, I can pretty safely predict someone who will soon lose her job. Her name is Dina Mayr, a teacher in the York Catholic District School Board.

Ms. Mayr, a 23-year employee of the board, has taken public exception to York's refusal to allow the Pride flag to be raised at any buildings within their jurisdiction. She

is the parent of a transgender child, who went to a school she taught at. She feels “utterly ashamed” to be a part of a system that made this decision.

“It seems to be a worldwide movement of hatred that has just infiltrated school boards, including our own,” she said. While her son has now graduated, Mayr used to feel like he was safe with her advocating behind the scenes.

“I can’t believe that a Catholic school, a Catholic system can stand by and allow that to continue to happen.”

Apparently, in the minds of some, raising the Pride flag is tantamount to surrendering to an 'agenda' that runs contrary to the Catholic faith. 

[B]oard chair Frank Alexander told reporters that trustees were advised by two archbishops that the flags don’t “align with our Catholic values.” 

"That’s fundamentally why I voted against it,” he said, noting schools that fly the flag would face consequences.

Apparently, the message of love, acceptance and compassion that permeates the New Testament means nothing to the powers-that-be, who seem more in tune with the Old Testament Yahweh, who was known to get His celestial nose out of joint on occasion, resulting in much smiting and tribulation.

But, I suppose, we must respect the doctrinal 'purity' of York's decision:

At York Catholic, Alexander was asked why the YCDSB is one of a few remaining boards that won’t fly the flag, and he said “what’s different about us is that we stand for our faith, we stand for Christ.”

The committee’s report, however, said “our Catholicity calls us to be inclusive, compassionate, and empathetic. Pope Francis continues to urge all of us to welcome LGBTQ members into the church, to demonstrate ‘tenderness, please, as God has for each one of us.’”

A political response riddled with hypocrisy, if there ever was one.

Getting back to vocal critic Dina Mayr and my prediction of a truncated career with York, allow me to tell you a story from my teaching days demonstrating that publicly opposing your employer, while perhaps principled, is never tolerated. 

In my final year or two of teaching, I had a terrible principal, one I regarded as a psychopath. My vice-principal was sane, but he was an overly sensitive man who saw those of us in the West Wing of the school  (the farthest geographic point from the administrators) as constantly conspiring against him and his ilk. (It wasn't true. We only occasionally conspired against him.) Anyway, he redeemed himself completely in my eyes after he left our school to become principal of a vocational school within our board. By all accounts, he did an excellent job for the students, so much so that he publicly railed against the board's decision to close his school.

Ultimately, his efforts failed, and he was slated to become the principal of a vocational school elsewhere when the board announced it had changed its mind and appointed someone else, on the pretext that in the closing days of his old school, an act of  vandalism under his watch. While they refused to comment on his fate, I later learned the board fired him. The same fate awaits Ms. Mayr, perhaps, for example, for something as trivial as unauthorized used of the photocopier. 

The lesson to be learned, a hard one, is this:

"Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord [and the board].

UPDATE: Here is Michael Coren's take on the issue.



 

 

10 comments:

  1. “It seems to be a worldwide movement of hatred that has just infiltrated school boards, including our own,” she said. While her son has now graduated, Mayr used to feel like he was safe with her advocating behind the scenes.
    So everything was fine until about 1% of the population needed their flag flown?
    Most don't care until you tell them they have to wear a badge or fly a certain flag. Is the star of david and pentangle next so they don't feel alienated?
    Waving your own flag is fine. Requiring others (the 99%) to is borderline madness.
    But here we are.

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    1. I was watching the local news tonight, lunta, and one of the officials at a board raising the flag talked about what the flag means for him. Paraphrasing slightly, "It means you see me, you hear me, and you respect me." Not bad reasons, in my view, to raise the flag everywhere.

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    2. Just because a tiny group has an overwhelming need to be recognised it will prove to be a bad precedent to attempt to accommodate the traditional "blackhole of neediness" in broken humanity.

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  2. Pride used to be about supporting Gay rights - gay men and women and bi-sexual men and women. There has been was has been described as "forced teaming" with the gay rights movement and the trans rights movement. In terms of philosophy, they are completely incompatible. This can be seen by the amount of security that was needed for philosopher Kathleen Stock, who is a lesbian, and to speak at Oxford on her views that biology exists and same sex attraction exists. We see a high number of same sex attracted youth appearing at gender clinics. We also see groups such as LGB Alliance who are opposing trans ideology. The icing on the cake is NYC Pride march founder, Fred Sargeant assaulted by trans rights activists. Pride isn't Gay Pride anymore. It's profoundly disheartening. Fealty isn't owed to trans rights activists and gender ideology. The LGB doesn't fit with the T. I can see why those in the middle don't want to be forced to appear to support gender ideology, when they'd be happy to support gay rights.

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    1. What I think ultimately joins them, Anon, is the sense of alienation that society has instilled in them. A Pride flag that represents diversity is all to the good, in my view.

      As to your comments, a diversity of opinion is to be welcomed. I make no pretense of understanding gender-identity problems, and I welcome different views, as should we all if we haven't shut our minds off completely to new ideas.

      And I do have to wonder how Pride has come to be equated with the transgendered. Could the media have played a role?

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  3. There are a couple teachers on social media talking about this in a way that makes me worried for their employment! The rule was always: We can criticize the government, but never our own school board, so I often couched my criticism as somehow directed at Ford (or whomever). I hope a good equity-type lawyer steps up if something happens. Alternatively, they might just get the worst schedules of their least-favourite classes until they leave of their own accord. I've seen that happen too.

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    1. I was thinking of your last point while I was writing the post, Marie. If a board wants to avoid the stigma of a cause-and-effect termination, they do have other ways of breaking the teacher. Had I ever gone too far in my criticisms of administration, all they would have had to do was assign me math classes, and then fire me for gross incompetence.

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  4. Thanks for the link, MC. Outside of his call for compassion, I'm sorry you share Douglas's hoary view of homosexuality.

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  5. This men in skirts thing is getting out of hand.
    Now they parade with 'pride' in their dozens even hundreds!!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnG1oUkWBa8

    TB

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    1. LOL, TB. Absolutely shameless, aren't they? Many thanks.

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