How can you make your Catholic school more LGBT friendly?

Answer 1

An LGBT friendly place not only creates a healthy atmosphere for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, it promotes equality and acceptance for everybody regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity, race/ethnicity, religion or background. Here are some ways you can do to make your school more friendly towards LGBT people.

Start an LGBT alliance group

Meet with like-minded people with a passion for equality and acceptance. This group may contain a combination of LGBT and heterosexual people. This group should focus on creating awareness and acceptance across the school by hosting events targetted towards educating people.

Encourage people to come out of the closet

Coming out of the closet sends a message through the school that there are LGBT people in the school and that they are just part of the school community. Generally, the more open LGBT people, the more people may be willing to accept them and reconsider their views.

Impose anti-discrimination and anti-bullying regulations

Lobbying and encouraging senior management to make regulations about bullying and discrimination against people who display homophobic behaviour. For example, if a person is caught writing the word "f*ggot" in a school bathroom, he should not only be punished for vandalism, but also for bullying.

Everything starts with you

Every person's actions will have an impact on the school overall. Stand up for your LGBT peers and speak up against any person who bullies people. Report them to higher authority if you feel the need to. Also, show that you are a supportive and caring person and offer your help and support to your LGBT friends.

Answer 2

The Roman Catholic Church, with its vehement political motives has tremendous policies and influence over Catholic schools all over the world. The Catholic Church teaches that homosexual thoughts are disordered and contrary to natural law. However, they believe that the homosexual person should be accepted and "treated" for their disorder.

No matter how devoutly Catholic you may be, this does NOTgive you an excuse to abuse or discriminate against LGBT people. While this is the teaching of the Catholic Church, many schools do not adhere by this, with many cases of expulsions and suspensions for being openly gay all over American Catholic schools and the world. Faculty members have also been sacked for defending LGBT students or coming out as gay in many schools all over the world.

To make your school more LGBT friendly, you simply have to be accepting and promote good moral values and principles, independent from religion. Punishing homophobic students or suspending them will send out a strong message to everyone that there is nothing wrong with being gay and they are simply our neighbour and fellow human beings.

If the Principal of the school is homophobic or highly conservative, the Board of Trustees should seriously consider replacing him/her with a more suitable candidate, and consider expulsion if the Principal continues to promote anti-LGBT ideas and thoughts.

Sexual education should be tailored not only to heterosexual students, but to the LGBT community. This will create an atmosphere of acceptable and diversity.

If you have any complaints about a teacher or student, you should refer this to higher authority such as the school Principal or Board of Trustees. If this is not resolved to a satisfactory level, you should refer it to the State School Board or the Human Rights Committee. A civil lawsuit may be an option if you feel that you have been abused or discriminated against seriously.