Ohio Catholic school drops graduation speaker over support for LGBTs marrying
A county commissioner has been dropped as a
graduation speaker at the Catholic school he attended in his own youth
because he is working to allow same-sex couples to marry in Ohio
Photo: Facebook
An Ohio local politician has been dropped as the graduation speaker at
the Catholic high school he attended as a teen because of his same-sex
marriage advocacy.
Franklin County Commissioner John O’Grady had been scheduled to speak at the Bishop Ready High School on Saturday but parents were confused when he failed to show.
O’Grady, who graduated from the school in 1982, told The Columbus Dispatch newspaper that the school’s principal had contacted him two months ago to tell him he would no longer be needed as a speaker.
O’Grady says he was told the decision had been made by Columbus Catholic Bishop Frederick Campbell in response to O’Grady’s role co-chairing Ohio’s Freedom to Marry campaign which is working to overturn the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.
O’Grady told the newspaper the decision to drop him as speaker was saddening as some of the graduates were the children of students he has gone to school with at Bishop Ready High School over 30 years ago.
‘I am sad that I wasn’t able to give a commencement speech at my alma mater,’ O’Grady told The Dispatch, ‘I was very much looking forward to it.’
The decision to drop O’Grady as commencement speaker comes just three months after the Ohio state Catholic school system fired a physical education teacher for being lesbian after her partner’s name was mentioned in her mother’s obituary.
A poll in April found that 54 percent of Ohioans support repealing the state’s ban on same-sex marriage and allowing same-sex couples to marry in the state.
Earlier this month an Ohio transgender teen in the public school system was told she would be allowed to graduate in female robes.
Franklin County Commissioner John O’Grady had been scheduled to speak at the Bishop Ready High School on Saturday but parents were confused when he failed to show.
O’Grady, who graduated from the school in 1982, told The Columbus Dispatch newspaper that the school’s principal had contacted him two months ago to tell him he would no longer be needed as a speaker.
O’Grady says he was told the decision had been made by Columbus Catholic Bishop Frederick Campbell in response to O’Grady’s role co-chairing Ohio’s Freedom to Marry campaign which is working to overturn the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.
O’Grady told the newspaper the decision to drop him as speaker was saddening as some of the graduates were the children of students he has gone to school with at Bishop Ready High School over 30 years ago.
‘I am sad that I wasn’t able to give a commencement speech at my alma mater,’ O’Grady told The Dispatch, ‘I was very much looking forward to it.’
The decision to drop O’Grady as commencement speaker comes just three months after the Ohio state Catholic school system fired a physical education teacher for being lesbian after her partner’s name was mentioned in her mother’s obituary.
A poll in April found that 54 percent of Ohioans support repealing the state’s ban on same-sex marriage and allowing same-sex couples to marry in the state.
Earlier this month an Ohio transgender teen in the public school system was told she would be allowed to graduate in female robes.
No comments:
Post a Comment