Parents ask for Christian Flag to be raised during Easter
A simple request for inclusion
By Elton Robinson
Christian Flag to be raised at GECDSB to join LGBTQ
Tuesday February 21st 2023, a night that will be remembered fondly by Christian children and their community, as the Greater Essex County District School Board (GECDSB) indicated that their Justice Equity Inclusion and Diversity (JEID) policies indeed do extend to Christian students.
Trustee Linda Qin, a Chinese born immigrant who has been in Canada for over 10 years, in my view is the JEID princess of GECDSB. In the short time since arriving in Canada, Linda became more Canadian than many who have been their whole lives. Linda moved here for a better future for her children to live in our great country of multiculturalism and diversity where everyone matters equally, not just a select few.
Trustee Qin placed a notice of motion on the floor for the March 21st GECDSB meeting. It was for flying a Christian Flag over Easter starting this year and every year after. Linda stated in her motion that the Christian community contacted her with this request. Well myself as a Christian father know why they chose to ask Linda, as she is a beacon of light that will speak to all people not just a select few.
With parents pushing back on items that do not include many of their beliefs, could this be a sign for Ontarians that all children matter? That the values held by their families matter? Well my household sure hopes so, as Windsor is known to be leaders in diversity for Canada, and GECDSB has been a shining star on many issues related to JEID.
It is worth mentioning that, in recognition of Pride Month North America, the GECDSB was one of the first school boards to raise Pride flags at their schools during Pride month (June) starting in 2016.
The idea to bring forward a motion to fly the flags first began in 2015 when Walkerville Collegiate Institute decided to fly the Pride Flag at their school. Photos were then posted to social media drawing the interest of students and staff at other schools. Walter Cassidy, chair of the board's Gender and Sexuality Alliance and one of the Pride in Education creators and compilers, asked the school board to raise the flags at high schools and the board office. Trustee Julia Burgess, representing the Town of Essex and the Town of Kingsville tabled the motion and it passed unanimously 10-0. Walter Cassidy said although the school board has shown its support for the LGBT community before, having a board-wide image of support adds something extra.
Well done Walter and Julia! Hopefully we will be able to have our children and community feel the same when they see the Christian flag flying over all schools this Easter. Which will hopefully spark creative JEID ideas for all communities to start having their cultural artifacts occasionally displayed as symbols of inclusiveness.
To add on to Walter and Julia’s success in 2016, all but one trustee in a 2019 vote of the Greater Essex County District School Board voted to expand Pride month flag flying. The 9-1 vote on Feb. 19 2019 was in favor of having flags flown at city and county elementary schools during Pride month in June. This is an expansion of the decision made in 2016 which saw the Pride flag flying over the district’s head office and high schools. The flags will be flown for one week at minimum during June.
Josh Canty, the GECDSB Superintendent of Education – Student Success, Alternative Education and Equity stated "The flags were put up for a reason, so that our students feel included and safe, all of our students feel that they're in a welcoming space” Unfortunately he made these comments due to an issue during last June Pride month.
Sydney Brouillard-Coyle, education lead and non-binary peer mentor at Trans Wellness Ontario, said "It is up to everybody, up to teachers, up to school boards, up to individuals, health-care providers, everyone within every field to do the work to ensure that their spaces are safe, to do the work to learn how to be allies, how to be effective allies.”
I agree 100% with Josh and Sydney that every person shares a responsibility to contribute to the safety and inclusiveness of school and community spaces. I know what disrespect and hate feels like through my lived experience of being Christian. I truly hope to see a day that we may all live as one in unity where we will not need flags to make us feel welcome, but have these flags to appreciate all of our diversity and to make all of our children feel equal and included. So we may all get back to student academic achievement and make Canada great again.
Leaving off with a quote from Trustee Julia Burgess regarding the Pride flag decision - “It’s just an expression of the fullness of the humanity of the community we serve.” Thank you for leading the way and for the example you set in 2016. I encourage members of our GECDSB community to display with affection the cultural symbols meaningful to them and celebrate the diversity that makes our community so great, as Trustee Burgess put it, “It’s important that we have the symbols,”.
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Thanks for reading. For more from this author read, Parent called "white supremacist" for supporting police in schools
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I applaud the push for this to demonstrate the "inclusiveness" that seems so important (at least symbolically) in schools. Hopefully every group with a flag no matter how minor pushes for their flag as well and school boards will be forced to end this nonesense and just fly the Canadian flag at schools.
Karl Marx once famously said, "religion is the opiate of the masses" to which Voltaire had earlier said, "if God didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him." Both quotes attest to the importance of having a system of comfort beliefs that provide answers and security for many of life's trials and tribulations. There are a diversity of cultures in the world that all have their own interpretations of God which are expressed in a multitude of religions. Christianity is but one of many religions in Canada and for public schools to display the Christian flag at Easter, to the exclusion of others, signals primacy to one religion, a divisive act in a pluralistic society which should be avoided at all costs in the interest in the inclusivity.
I think it extremely important to remember that the celebration of Easter began as a pagan festival that celebrated the spring equinox and the rebirth of light. The symbolism that we see today in Christianity, with the resurrection of the son (sun) and the rebirth of spring, had many parallels in the ancient world with the name of Easter possibly traceable to the Anglo-Saxon goddess, "Eostre".
Personally, the only flags that I think should be flown at public schools are the ones that define our unity as a country which would be limited to the Provincial and National flags. Any other flags are basically symbols of divisiveness and virtue signaling.
As my father was fond of saying in regards to fair play, "you can't make rats of one and mice of the others".