An Australian principal has received hundreds of hate-mail emails after he suggested that a seven year old girl was not welcome at his school because her father is gay. Anti-marriage equality campaigner and Foundation Christian College principal Andrew Newhouse told the gay father that his daughter could only stay at the school providing she did not speak to anyone about her father’s sexuality or his partner. The man, who wishes to only be identified as Brendan to protect the identity of his daughter, has said that the conversation came out after his daughter told her friends her dad is gay. He told the Mandurah Mail; “[My daughter] got talking about Tony Abbott and gay marriage and mentioned that her dad is with [my partner] and she was shut down by her teacher and then the teacher had to explain to the class what ‘gay’ is. “We were asked to go into a meeting that we thought would be about her education and how she was going in class to be told that [my daughter] had mentioned I’m gay,” he said. “I was told that they don’t promote ‘gay’ at the school and [my daughter] was unable to talk about my life between [my partner] and me and general stuff about what a kid talks about with her parents. “She could mention my name, but she couldn’t talk about us being gay or relating to us as a couple, so pretty much to a seven-year-old, we were forced to say to [my daughter] that she wasn’t allowed to talk about Daddy or [my partner] at all.” Since the story went public Newhouse has received so many emails condemning him for his views that he has taken down the schools website. A petition calling for Western Australia’s Minister for Education Peter Collier and Premier Colin Barnett to ban discrimination such as this has gained over 15,000 signatures. The petition states: “Unbelievably, this discrimination is legal in WA! Equal opportunity legislation bans schools discriminating on the basis of sexuality – but there’s an exception for religious schools. Peter Collier, Colin Barnett: you need to close this loophole immediately! Ban ALL schools from expelling a child based on homophobic grounds.”
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Sunday, 1st November 2015 - 1:24pm