CANADA

A Catholic school board in suburban Toronto has voted to uphold its policy banning Pride flags from being displayed outside schools after a school trustee introduced a motion to revise the policy on Jan. 22.

The Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board governs 151 public Catholic schools in Toronto’s western suburbs. In the province of Ontario, Catholic schools receive public funding and are allowed to promote religious teaching, but must generally follow provincial nondiscrimination law.

The board’s policy limits the flags that may be flown outside schools based on the number of flagpoles the school has. Those with one pole must fly the Canadian flag, those with two must also fly the Ontario flag, while those with three must fly a flag that is either associated with the liturgical season of the church, the school board itself, or a local Catholic charity. 

Trustee Brea Corbet had proposed that the third flagpole could be used to fly the Pride flag or other appropriate flags.

“When we remove rainbow flags or other heritage flags, we’re not protecting Catholic identity. We’re revealing institutional fragility. The rainbow flag doesn’t threaten Catholic education. Policies of exclusion do. And exclusion is a strong form of bullying,” Corbet said.

But other trustees rejected the motion. 

“The LGBTQ+ community is not our enemy. We all fall short of God’s glory. We are not judging, but we are also not promoting. We don’t want to outwardly promote, because our faith doesn’t allow us to. We are called to love all people, whatever their beliefs are. We are not discriminating against anyone,” Trustee Paula Dametto-Giovannozzi said at the meeting.

The current policy allows Pride flags to be displayed inside schools, but only during a specific “observance period” and they must be removed at other times.

“Prohibiting these flags from flying outside the board office and removing them inside schools after an observance period ends does not make school environments more welcoming, safer, more inclusive. It doesn’t,” Corbet said of the policy.

Catholic school boards in Ontario and other parts of Canada have a long history of disputes over LGBTQ inclusion, including a historic legal fight over whether a student could bring a same-sex date to prom, and an eventual political fight over whether gay-straight alliances would be allowed at Catholic schools. Pride flags have become the latest flashpoint as the school boards have lost more and more of these battles in the courts and legislatures.

UNITED KINGDOM

The iconic queer nightclub G-A-Y Bar in Soho has been put up for sale following a year of turmoil for the club and its related businesses G-A-Y Late and Heaven.

One of the best-known queer nightlife brands in London, G-A-Y has been around in some form or another since 1976, but recently it’s come under evident trouble.

In December 2023, G-A-Y Late closed, with owner Jeremy Joseph citing safety and crime issues among the reasons why he shut the bar down. Last November, the Heaven nightclub was forced to shut for several weeks when its license was pulled after one of its security guards was accused of rape.

Joseph cited the stress caused by the closure of Heaven as one reason why he’s selling G-A-Y Bar.

“I was clear to Westminster CC’s Licensing committee that if they closed Heaven for even a short time it would potentially put G-A-Y Bar at risk financially,” Joseph said in a statement posted to Instagram. “Even now after Heaven’s reopening, the damage financially and and mentally has been irreparable.”

Joseph also said that the changing nature of the gay scene has made it difficult to sustain a queer nightclub. 

“When I started G-A-Y it was always about having a venue on Old Compton Street and Canal Street, being the gayest streets in the gayest capitals. But it’s not like that anymore,” he said. 

“My goal would be for G-A-Y Bar to remain an LGBT venue and will consider franchise options, but my guts is that in the current climate, and it won’t be because Old Compton Street is not the same anymore, it has a new identity and when you look down the street, you see restaurants, cafes, take aways but the street that was the LGBT capital, is no more.”

The nightclub has been listed online with annual rent of £410,000 ($510,000).

AUSTRALIA

The classic 80s Australian film “Crocodile Dundee” is getting recut to remove an unpleasant transphobic scene ahead of a rerelease later this spring.

The 4K remastered edition of the 1986 film, titled “Crocodile Dundee: The Encore Cut” was screened at Sydney’s OpenAir Cinema on Jan 23. The new cut removes about two minutes from the film, including a scene where the titular naïve hunter played by Paul Hogan grabs a trans woman by the groin and says, “that was a guy, dressed up like a Sheila,” while another character yells a homophobic slur.

The new cut also includes an aboriginal land acknowledgment and some extended scenes.

Hogan, who was on hand for the screening, told reporters he “totally” agreed with the cuts, which had been made in the past for broadcast edits of the film.

“I heard about it years ago, it started, and it wasn’t about being woke,” Hogan said.

“They pointed out to me and said, ‘This guy is a folk hero around the world, and he shouldn’t be groping people.’ And I thought, ‘Yeah that’s right, he shouldn’t be,’ so take it out. I mean, he did it in all innocence, in naivety, but it’s better without it.”

The original “Crocodile Dundee” remains, by a wide margin, the highest-grossing Australian film of all time, and was a genuine global phenomenon. It was the second-highest grossing film at the U.S. box office in 1986 and inspired two sequels and a brief fad for all things Australian. 

PHILIPPINES

Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos is pledging to veto a proposed sex education bill designed to fight teen pregnancy because he says he believes the new curriculum includes instruction for kindergarteners on how to masturbate, which, it should go without saying, it does not.

“You will teach 4-year-olds how to masturbate. That every child has the right to try different sexualities. This is ridiculous. It is abhorrent. It is a travesty of what sexual [orientation] and sex education should be to children,” Marcos told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Marcos concedes that schools need to teach children about the consequences of teen pregnancy — which has seen an alarming increase in recent years — and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, but said he does not support the Prevention of Adolescent Pregnancy Bill currently before congress.

“To include the so-called ‘woke’ absurdities are abhorrent to me — and I’m already guaranteeing, this would not be passed into a law if this bill is passed in that form,” he said. “I guarantee all parents, teachers, and children: I will immediately veto it.”

The allegations about the subject matter of the proposed sex ed seems to come from a religious group led by a former chief justice, which has popularized the false claim that the bill would require schools to provide lessons on “bodily pleasure” and “sexual rights.” These bogus claims about sex education are familiar tropes pushed by religious conservatives across the world.

But Sen. Risa Hontiveros, who authored the bill, has fought back hard against the allegations.

“Mr. President, with all due respect, it’s clear that even the word ‘masturbation’ is not in the bill. It also did not mention ‘try different sexualities,’” Hontiveros said in a statement.

Hontiveros says she’s willing to accept amendments to get the bill passed.