Student Suspended for Faith Protest
Apparently, not all Catholic schools and school districts are clinging to a biblical view of only two genders.
Weeks after this Iowa Catholic diocese banned preferred pronouns and nixed the woke bathroom agenda in its schools, a student in Renfrew, Ontario, Canada, was suspended for the remainder of the school year for protesting against transgender students using the girl’s bathrooms, as well as for believing that God made only males and females.
Josh Alexander was suspended late last year from St. Joseph’s Catholic High School in Renfrew. Theblaze.com reported that Alexander had organized a protest against the school’s bathroom policy after two female students at St. Joseph’s had confided in him that they were uncomfortable sharing bathrooms with biological males.”
Alexander, 16, is an 11th grade student at St. Joseph’s. He informed The Epoch Times recently that his school told him his attendance would be “detrimental to the physical and mental well-being” of transgender students, and that the school labeled his beliefs as “offensive” and “bullying” because there was a transgender student in his class. It indicated that the well-being of the transgender students was more important than the biblically held beliefs of Alexander and other students.
In his interview with The Epoch Times, Alexander insisted that he wasn’t trying to bully anyone.
“Offense is obviously defined by the offended. I expressed my religious beliefs in class and it spiraled out of control,” Alexander said. “Not everybody’s going to like that. That doesn’t make me a bully. It doesn’t mean I’m harassing anybody. They express their beliefs and I express mine. Mine obviously don’t fit the narrative.
“This whole issue isn’t about identity. It’s about biology and morality.”
When his suspension was lifted at the beginning of January, Alexander said he was “excluded” by the principal, which has the same effect as suspension but is considered “non-disciplinary.”
Alexander was told this week that he would be “excluded” for the rest of the school year and is not sure if it will extend until next year. Principal Derek Lennox told The Epoch Times that he could not comment on the situation.
“Obviously, he (Alexander) doesn’t actually bully them as that term would be defined by … reasonable people,” Alexander’s attorney James Kitchen told The Epoch Times.
“He’s not going to seek them out and call them names and make fun of them. But he does express his views about what these people say and about what they believe and about what they’re doing. And he expresses them online, and he expresses them in the class.”
Mark Searson, director of education for the Renfrew County Catholic District School Board, told The Epoch Times in December that the board takes a “pastoral approach” with transgender students, engaging them in conversations and trying to bring people together without conflict. {eoa}
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Shawn A. Akers is the online editor at Charisma Media.
