York’s Catholic school trustees are abusing their power by refusing to raise the Pride flag. Their day of reckoning is coming

Pride comes before the fall.

False pride ― and prejudice toward the Pride flag ― will lead to the downfall of public funding for separate schools.

By refusing to raise the Pride flag at their main office, Catholic school trustees in York Region are giving Ontario a lesson in the politics of religious intolerance and intransigence. When blind faith closes its eyes to LGBTQ students, it leads to a dead end.

“The flag does not align with our faith,” argued board chair Frank Alexander. “We stand for our faith, we stand for Christ.”

Not so simple. It is not merely a matter of personal faith, for it also matters how the public feels.

York’s Catholic trustees are caught up in a catechism wrapped in a contradiction inside an anachronism. The trouble with their regressive and aggressive stand is not just that it harms LGBTQ students, but that it hurts the good name of Catholic educators everywhere ― the vast majority of whom are broadly supportive of Pride flags and GSAs.

I have long believed it is merely a matter of time ― and political will ― before our separate school system is fully integrated with other school boards. That said, I have never believed it was a decision that should be rushed or forced on people, lest it stoke anti-Catholic sentiment or fears of persecution.

But discrimination against LGBTQ students breeds recrimination. When rogue Catholic trustees ramp up prejudice under the cloak of religion, it triggers a reaction.

York trustees are shining a light on the contradictions in our school system today, but these tensions are nothing new. The separate Catholic system is a historical and constitutional fact that made Confederation possible in 1867.

Back then, Catholics were a religious minority seeking protection from persecution. But that should not confer a belated and distorted right, more than 150 years later, to discriminate against other minority groups now that Catholics are essentially in a majority.

Nowhere is it written ― not in the 10 Commandments nor in the British North America Act ― that publicly-funded religious education that defies public policy must endure for eternity in our democracy. Canada’s Constitution is not ordained by God, it was written by men (who invited no one else to the table).

An outdated Constitution, out of sync with modern Ontario, can be updated when the time is right. By abusing their power and eroding their credibility, these Catholic trustees are moving up that day of reckoning.

But change cannot come overnight. Politics is not so simple.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce has exhorted the trustees to get with the times. He sent a memo to school boards demanding that “all students ― most especially 2SLGBTQ+ students ― feel supported, reflected in their schools … That includes celebrating Pride.”

But the minister stopped short of overruling York’s decision, prompting public criticism ― not least by Kathleen Wynne, Ontario’s first declared LGBTQ education minister and premier. Tempting as it is to fault Lecce, he is not responsible for this fault line in Ontario politics ― inherited from Wynne and previous premiers ― so it is unfair to transform him into a lightning rod in a losing battle.

Technically, constitutionally, the trustees are within their legal and religious rights to persist in ignoring the human rights of LGBTQ Ontarians. The way to prevail is to remind them, and all Catholic educators and leaders, that the constitutional is merely political and temporal.

No, the Constitution cannot be changed on a whim and a prayer. But it can be amended by a democratic vote in Ontario (and the federal Parliament), as Quebec and Newfoundland demonstrated in recent years.

No major political party has yet found the political will to dismantle this province’s separate school system. To the contrary, Tories, Liberals and NDP have all played footsie with questions of faith in education, cultivating support from Catholic leaders, donors and teachers’ unions over time; even the Green Party, which once advocated for elimination of a separate system, has gone quiet on the issue.

The last major political and religious confrontation in Ontario took place just over a decade ago, when then-premier Dalton McGuinty tried to finesse matters of faith by safeguarding gay-straight alliance support clubs in high schools. Ontario’s Catholic bishops pushed back hard, but McGuinty did not bend to their pressure tactics.

As the province’s second Catholic premier, he was better placed than most to break the taboo against dismantling the separate school system. But neither McGuinty nor any other prominent politician has been prepared to lead the way, leaving Ontario to play a waiting game while rogue trustees play political games.

The argument should not be about saving souls versus saving dollars, because reducing duplication is not the way to win hearts and minds. The more compelling case is that Ontario must truly reflect the diversity of its religiosity, by enacting true unity in our schools — educating and integrating people of all persuasions and faiths in a single public system (with other believers free to fund their own systems by opting out).

Goodwill has gotten Ontario a long way, but over time we must find the political will to merge and modernize our education system. Without a new framework, with clear rules and rights, our students will remain pawns in recurring political conflicts under the guise of traditional religious schisms.

Martin Regg Cohn is a Toronto-based columnist focusing on Ontario politics and international affairs for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @reggcohn