By ESTANISLAO OZIEWICZ
Tuesday, May 7, 2002 – Print Edition, Page A21
WHITBY -- Ontario Roman Catholic schools are simply wrong if they think they are above the law based on their 1867 constitutional right to exist, a lawyer representing a coalition supporting a student prohibited from taking his boyfriend to the prom said yesterday.
"We have public policy in Ontario that discrimination in Ontario based on sexual orientation is wrong and that applies to Catholics," Douglas Elliott said.
"We, as the people of Ontario, are entitled to insist that if they're going to accept our tax dollars to run their schools then they're going to have to accept certain limitations. And one of those limitations is that they cannot discriminate against people like Mark Hall. If they don't like that they don't have to take our money."
Mr. Hall, 17, has been at the centre of controversy since he challenged the Durham Catholic School Board's refusal to allow him to bring his 21-year-old boyfriend, Jean-Paul Dumond, to the end-of-school dance at Monsignor John Pereyma Catholic High School in nearby Oshawa.
Mr. Elliott said the board would not be allowed to argue that a Muslim should not be allowed to paint school halls or fix the plumbing and yet it is barring Mr. Hall from choosing a date of his choice.
"Would we allow them to forbid a Jewish girl to go with Mark Hall just because they couldn't get married in the Catholic Church eventually?" Mr. Elliott asked. "Of course not, we'd never allow that."
Mr. Elliott was speaking to reporters outside the Whitby Courthouse where he had presented his case before Mr. Justice Robert MacKinnon of the Ontario Superior Court. Judge MacKinnon, at the outset of the proceeding, had urged the two sides to settle out of court.
He offered them time to negotiate but the sides elected to proceed with the two-day hearing in which Mr. Hall's lawyers are trying to get an injunction that would let him attend Friday's prom.
Outside the packed courtroom, Mr. Hall, wearing a grey suit and blue shirt and tie and with his hair dyed blue, told reporters: "I think it's weird it has gone this far. I'm only 17 and I'm suing my own school board."
Mr. Dumond, a manager at a retail electronics store, was clearly frustrated that the couple had been forced to fight in court for the right to attend Mr. Hall's prom together.
"I don't understand why we have to do this in the year 2002. I'm desperately hoping this will all come to an end and we can go to the prom and enjoy ourselves." The prom tickets cost $150 a couple.
David Corbett, Mr. Hall's lawyer, told the court the contest is between Mr. Hall's rights and the Catholic school board's right to freedom of religion and to run its schools in accordance with its religious beliefs.
He said the school board is bound not only by the Charter of Rights but also by common law, the provincial Education Act's code of conduct, and the Ontario Human Rights Code.
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