'Leave law aside:' Alberta professors debate gay-straight alliances

It's best for everyone if the resolution togay-straight alliances (GSAs) in religious schools is not left upthecourts, agreed the opposing sides of a public debate Wednesday at the University of Alberta.

"You are not going to have religious schools change their view on what it is to be human, or on what sexuality is, or what gender is," said KentDonlevy, an associate professor at the University of Calgary'sWerklundSchool of Education.

"They can't change it because it's part of their faith."

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Donlevyargued on behalf of religious schools' freedom to practice and teach their respective faiths, without government interference, even when those beliefsbar students from forming GSAs.

His opponent Kristopher Wells, director of the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services at the University ofAlberta,countered that such alliances are crucial to the wellbeing of LGBTQ students, "to help these young people navigate hostile hallways and move from trying to just simply survive every day in their school environment."

In Alberta, schools must allow their students to establish GSAs, or queer-straight alliances.

Staff are encouraged to guide these alliances, so students can "beconnected with teachers and supports that enable them to thrive and see their school experience as something positive that they want to continue," Wells said.

In January, two Alberta bishops rejected the province's freshly-printed gender-identity guidelines which reinforced students'rights to form GSAs regardless of their schools' faith.

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In September two Edmonton schools belonging to the Baptist Christian Education Society also rejected the guidelines.

Education Minister David Eggen saidhe would not rule out withholding funds of schoolsthat refused to comply.

'Sometimes law is notthe answer'

Donlevy, a lawyer who is also certified with the Alberta Teachers' Association, said he hopes disputes about GSAs can be resolved without resorting to legal action.

"Sometimes law is not the answer," he said.

"Leave law aside, leave that statute aside and let's just bring these people together to begin to talk about how they can create an agreement between the two of them wherebyfaith communitiescan exist on their own, independent of being compelled by the state to change their fundamental beliefs by creating GSAs in the school."

Above all, Donlevysaid schools and politicians must remember those caught in the crossfire of their dispute.

"We're all moving in the same direction which is to help and take care of children,"hesaid.

Wells agreed that students' interests are best served if GSAsdo not become mired in legalities.

Like Donlevy, he hopes for a discussion that leaves both sides satisfied. But here, Wells added, there is an impasse: neither side can relinquish their stance without also letting go of what they claim to be their rights.

"How do we find common ground? How do we actually go about putting the needs of students above debates?

"The more heated and polarized things get, the more that we leave it to the courts to intervene.We always take a risk. Neither side of the issue might like the result of the courts."