Catholic officials can become very heavy handed at the slightest hint of homosexuality. A Facebook school prank that misfired, with pretend kisses between six teenage boy students, was enough to get the lads banned from their own high school graduation. If the prank photos had showed them kissing girls, they would surely have never been banned. Does a fake kiss between best mates even suggest, let alone prove, homosexuality?
Catholic teaching: firm friends are valued
Catholic teachings on sexuality is truly disordered when firm friendships, which the Church positively celebrates, are brought into disrepute by misinterpretation and over-reaction.
“I am also ready to admit the value of a loyal and lasting friendship between two persons of the same sex”
says Cardinal Martini, former Archbishop of Milan, in his new book Credere e Conoscere (Believing and Knowing)
Kissing breaks ‘disreputable’ rule
A Catholic school near the capital, Manila, of the Philippines, the Infant Jesus Academy, is withholding the high school diplomas of six student teenage boys who appeared on Facebook to be kissing each other. The school is in the conservative and 80% Catholic Phillipines, one of the most prolific nations for using social networking. The students, aged between 16 and 17, were accused of bringing the school into disrepute by publishing photographs of themselves in school uniform which were not taken at school, apparently kissing.
Prank misfires
The boys say they took prank photographs to make it appear as if they were kissing. When they put them up on Facebook, their prank misfired badly after they accidentally left the setting on ‘public’, meaning everyone could see them. The school officials originally refused to allow them to graduate at all, but later relented somewhat.
“Sacred” school diplomas
The Catholic school called the photos “damaging” to its reputation and said the students had broken a school rule, which bans “any conduct inside or outside the campus which brings the student, his/her family and the school in disrepute”. This rule is so loosely worded no-one can know what counts as misbehaviour, it’s just a case of “if you’re caught, and we decide we don’t like it, you’re done for.”
One of the boy’s mothers quoted the Infant Jesus Academy head, Peter Mallonga, as saying the school diploma is “sacred.” A simple school diploma is perversely elevated to the status of Holy Writ, which seems sacrilegious behaviour by the head.
Education Department steps in
After the school banned them from graduating, the Department of Education intervened and the youths were able to graduate, although their diplomas will be withheld. One of the students said it was only a camera trick and done for fun’s sake. “We tried to explain that those were just camera tricks, but they did not listen to us,” one of the students said.
“They can march but the release of their diploma will be delayed,” said Samuel Mergenio, an official of the Department of Education. “We took the initiative and talked to the school who will allow the students to march. They will also be recognized as graduates.” He said the school did not say when the diplomas will be handed over and that he was awaiting a formal written report from the school. The school chancellor was not available for comment on Friday.
Even without their diplomas, they will be able to enroll in a university, as the school will provide alternative certification for this. The diplomas are just the formal scroll certificate which wasn’t formally presented to the youths.
One of the boy’s mothers claimed: “For them, the school diploma is sacred. They will [eventually] give it to the students, as the punishment will not be for life. But it will take two years, three years, four years, even eight years. The officials said [the boys] are not deserving, as of the moment, to receive their diplomas.”
Mum flew in, then boycotted the ceremony
The mother of the boy who uploaded the photos said she works as a nurse in Saudi Arabia and returned home only to attend the graduation of her son, one of twins. She said she refused to attend the graduation ceremony because her son would only be subjected to ridicule since he won’t be called to the stage to receive his diploma. “It will be like an insult.”
School girls “sluts” says head
In a similar Phillipines case in the same week, five high school girl graduates fared rather better, but only after a court intervened. Five teenage girl graduates were berated and called “sluts” and banned from graduating by their headteacher, for private Facebook photographs of them in bikinis at a beach, with one holding a cigarette and a vodka bottle. A Court ruled that the school must allow them to graduate.
Judge rules banning graduation is “most un-Christian”
The male judge said the female students had gone through “a psychologically and emotionally devastating experience” and not allowing them to participate in graduation activities “would indeed be most un-Christian, if not entirely inhuman”. He said the families had filed charges against the school and school officials of “grave oral defamation” and illegal use of photos showing minors. The school officials had illegally obtained the pictures because they were not Facebook friends of the girls and were not allowed access.
LGB and gender-bending bakla in the Phillipines
The Phillipines, while 80% Catholic, does not criminalise homosexuality and there is a lesbian, gay and bisexual culture and facilities. There’s a local tradition of publicly visible gender-bending: a bakla is a man who displays feminine mannerisms, dresses as a women, or identifies as a woman. Bakla are the most culturally visible group of gay men in the Philippines. They are often considered a third gender, embodying femaleness in a male body. It’s not the same as cross-dressing or drag queens in Britain. There is a similar gender-bending tradition in Thailand and elsewhere in SE Asia – the kathoey, or in English, ladyboys.
Source
This news was widely reported this weekend; additional details collected from a range of news sources
Related articles
- Lesbian with kids in Catholic school demands removal of Catechism quote on homosexuality (lifesitenews.com)
- Student’s bikini photo on Facebook results in graduation ban (digitallife.today.msnbc.msn.com)
