Politically Correct Pecking order?

Source:   By Exra Levant, Canadian media personality, conservative political activist and author.


High school can be a tough place for awkward teenagers to fit in, and being gay would make that even tougher.

Which is the rationale behind gay-straight alliances — student clubs set up to normalize being gay.

Same idea behind pink shirt day, which was in February.

But what about freedom of religion, specifically for schools that teach Bible-based sexual morality?

Of course, no one should be bullied at any school, for being gay or anything else.

But should Catholic schools be forced to positively affirm homosexuality?

Isn’t commanding a Catholic school to let same-sex couples go to the prom sort of like ordering a Jewish school to serve pork in the cafeteria?

This question was answered with a sledgehammer last June in Ontario, when that province passed the Accepting Schools Act.

So now the Archbishop of Toronto oversees a Catholic school system that, to quote the law, must be “more equitable and inclusive for all people, including LGBTTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, two-spirited, intersex, queer and questioning) people.”

LGBTTIQ and intersexed. Those are words now.

But what about Muslim schools?

Will they be asked to put the Qur’an second and “transgender acceptance” first?

The Valley Park Middle School in Toronto hasn’t. It’s not even a Muslim school — just a public school with a lot of Muslim students.

But each Friday, the cafeteria is handed over to a Muslim imam to lead weekly prayers. What makes the school’s mosqueteria even more remarkable is that students are segregated: Boys sit in the front, girls sit in the back, and girls who are menstruating are told to sit at the far back.

Do you think the Valley Park Middle School has a gay-straight alliance?

Do you think if one of the boys in that cafeteria announced he was two-spirited, and wanted to sit with the girls, that he’d be “accepted”?

Or, look to another province, the Edmonton Islamic Academy that claims to be the biggest Muslim school in North America.

It’s run by the Al-Rashid mosque, whose clerics often visit to give lectures in shariah law. Including on the subject of homosexuality.

Here’s a transcript of some comments made by Sheikh Mustafa Khattab of Al-Rashid. He’s proud of his lectures at the school — he puts videos of them on the Internet.

Like this one: “The worst thing about the west is too much freedom … Homosexuality is against everything. It is against Akhlaq (moral values). It is against nature or the way we are created … For me, someone who is homosexual is like someone who has diabetes or someone who has cancer or AIDS … Personally, I don’t like to be associated with them.”

The video then shows Khattab doing a little dramatic acting. He pretends he was sitting next to someone gay, and he awkwardly shuffles away from them, saying, “I was sitting next to the guy, I just moved my chair.

“I didn’t feel comfortable sitting next to this guy.”

The students love it, and burst out laughing.

Now, many people share Khattab’s views — not just fundamentalist Muslims.

He did not preach capital punishment for gays, as the Qur’an prescribes and as countries like Iran do. But he led his students in a good mocking laugh at gays — and compared being gay to having cancer.

We believe in freedom of religion in Canada. The Edmonton Islamic Academy has received millions of dollars of taxpayers money, including from gay taxpayers, but then again so have Catholic schools (though it’s hard to imagine a Catholic school teacher laughing at gays and comparing homosexuality to cancer).

What is so curious, though, is why Canada’s anti-bullying squads are practically dispatching the national guard to escort gay couples to the prom at Catholic schools, but don’t dare whisper a word of concern about the Edmonton Islamic Academy or the Valley Park Middle School or a dozen others.

It’s the politically correct pecking order.

To politicians, gays trump Christians.

But Muslims trump gays.