Taechun Menns and his friend were quietly reading a copy of Xtra, Canada's weekly gay and lesbian newspaper, when a classmate ripped the copy out of their hands and threw it in the garbage. The Xtra cover read: "Banning GSAs sucks."
The incident is one of the many Mr. Menns said he and his fellow gay-straight alliance (GSA) members say they face at St. Joseph's Catholic Secondary School in Mississauga.
"He said, 'this is garbage and that's where it belongs," Mr. Menns, 16, said. "It's really upsetting and only one girl stood up for us.
"I've walked down the hallway and people have shoved past me," Mr. Menns said. "And no one has said it to my face, but I can hear them calling me 'the fag who is starting the GSA.'"
The bullying is precisely why the Mississauga school needs a GSA, he said. 'A GSA would mean that the school does not support anti-gay bullying."
Leanne Iskander, the group's founder, was denied permission last month to form a GSA by the school's principal and instead was directed to join an equity group that is not focused solely on gay issues. It was a decision spokesman Bruce Campbell said the Dufferin Peel Catholic District School Board "wholeheartedly supports."
Ms. Iskander said since issue has exploded, members of the GSA have faced nasty attacks, many of which have moved online. One student quoted the Old Testament on Facebook, the popular social media website, writing: "Leviticus 18:22, You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination." The statement got more than 50 likes on Facebook.
Another comment wrote "faggots should burn in hell… I hate faggots...." Ms. Iskander said she took screen shots of the cyber-bullying and submitted it to school administration as proof last week.
"Some of the students don't want me to take it to the school principal, because they believe it will only hurt us if we tell on the students who are bullying us," Ms. Iskander.
She, too, believes a GSA is vital to providing a safe environment to prevent bullying against the LGBTQ community. "Do you need any more proof how necessary this is?" she said.
Mr. Campbell said the school board takes the "allegations of bullying very seriously," but would not discuss the details.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association says that forbidding students from forming a GSA is unconstitutional and goes against the students freedom of expression, including sexual orientation. But if the case went to the courts, the school board might be able to get away with it, said Cheryl Milne, executive director at the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights at the University of Toronto. Catholic schools are enshrined in the Constitution since 1867 - a policy that was put in place to protect the minority rights of Catholics, she said.The Ontario Ministry of Education allows school boards to amend its equity policy, providing they offer alternatives.
The ministry has been largely silent on the subject of GSAs since the issue first made international headlines in January. In the neighbouring Halton Catholic District School Board, chairwoman Alice LeMay came under fire when she told Xtra the board "doesn't allow Nazi groups either. Gay-straight alliances are banned because they are not within the teachings of the Catholic Church."
Public outrage forced the Halton board to lift the ban on gay-straight alliances, but it still does not allow any student group with the word "gay" in its title. In Mississauga, the students of St. Joseph have submitted a revised proposal to form a GSA.
Mr. Menn's mother, Lori Murphy, said she does not appreciate her son being the sacrificial lamb in battle between Church-led doctrine of the school boards and the ministry's equity policy.
"These students are just blowing my minds away with their determination to fight this," Ms. Murphy said. "But I'm very upset with the lack of support they are getting from the very people who are their role models at school."
Ms. Murphy said she has not received any correspondence from the school's administration that they are looking into the bullying incidents.
"Even though I'm a Catholic, if it comes down to protecting the rights and freedoms of my child over giving the right to have religious education, then my child will always trump my religion," she said. "Being bullied, being told not to be yourself if you're gay - that is not what I understand the Catholic religion to be."