The John-Henry Westen Show - January 18, 2023


Exclusive: 'Catholic' School To Punish 16-year-old Boy Wanting Girl-only Bathrooms


Episode Stats

Length

37 minutes

Words per Minute

190.39168

Word Count

7,045

Sentence Count

424

Misogynist Sentences

11

Hate Speech Sentences

23


Summary

Josh Alexander, the 16-year-old who went to bat for girls in his Catholic high school not to have biological males in their bathroom. Well, the story has new developments to it and now he and his lawyer are now going to the courts to fight this out.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 I myself am not Catholic but very similar belief system and I'm kind of shocked at how little
00:00:05.280 response there has been from the church. I even phoned one of the local churches the other day
00:00:09.520 and the pastor just told me he didn't want to speak to me. If I was a member of the Catholic
00:00:12.820 Church I'd be completely embarrassed by the actions of the school now that they're claiming
00:00:16.280 they're Catholic. It's kind of disappointing to see the lack of response from the local Catholic
00:00:20.120 church. We've also got a life funder we call it. It's like a GoFundMe for Josh and for his case.
00:00:26.880 What's going on now from a legal perspective? Well we are attempting to appeal the two suspensions
00:00:33.340 Josh has received. Hello everyone do you remember that heroic young man by the name of Josh Alexander?
00:00:40.940 He's the one the 16 year old who went to bat for girls in his Catholic high school not to have
00:00:48.320 biological males in their bathroom. Well the story has new developments to it. He and his lawyer are
00:00:55.980 now going to be going to the courts to fight this out because the school has actually believe it or
00:01:02.880 not given him a trespass notification. So he's going to be arrested for trespassing next time he comes in
00:01:10.040 this to go to his high school. He was suspended they lifted the suspension and lo and behold he went in
00:01:17.080 but no because he still doesn't agree to what I guess it is they want. He has continued his suspension
00:01:26.120 and now lawyers are getting involved. We're going to give you a chance to contribute to his efforts in
00:01:30.760 court with a life funder but I wanted to tell you some new developments. First of all I had an
00:01:36.600 opportunity to speak with one of the young ladies who confided in him. What are the reasons why he went
00:01:42.980 forward in the first place? Because this is very you know who is this guy? Well we were able to meet
00:01:49.580 with him in person so we know who this guy is. We had his testimony. We had him on a show before
00:01:53.860 but we weren't before able to speak to the young women who were suffering under what the school is
00:02:00.560 going through. So I wanted to read you from an interview that I had with her. Now she has to remain
00:02:05.180 anonymous. She wouldn't come on camera because obviously fear of massive reprisal. Look what's
00:02:11.300 happened to Josh Alexander. The poor boy has been suspended from school with threat of expulsion
00:02:18.080 and now he's been given a trespass notice for coming to school. We're going to hear from him
00:02:24.100 here in studio in just a few minutes. We're going to hear from his lawyer as well but I wanted to tell
00:02:29.280 you what this young lady had to say. She spoke with me from her school and has explained what went on.
00:02:37.720 Here's what she said. She had this conversation. So if you remember Josh told me that when he went
00:02:43.820 to the principal first to say hey you know I was approached by some of my classmates who are
00:02:49.460 uncomfortable with this idea that men are in there or young men are in their bathrooms and the principal
00:02:55.780 said first well no no no you got to get the girls to come in and tell us that. So he did. He got one of
00:03:02.240 these young ladies to come forward and go with him and the principal still did nothing and that's when
00:03:06.500 Josh Alexander said okay we're going to stage a walkout and protest this because this is ridiculous.
00:03:11.960 So here's how the story went from the side of the one of the young ladies that did speak with him.
00:03:18.560 She said I just told him this is her words. I just told him in passing conversation about this issue
00:03:24.940 that I was weirded out by it because it is males in my bathroom and I didn't know who else I could
00:03:32.460 talk to about it other than a few of my female friends. But then get this and this is mind-blowing.
00:03:40.360 This is what she told me about what went on inside the classroom because remember when Josh announced
00:03:49.160 that he was going to do a walkout for this the school threatened that any student who would join
00:03:56.400 Josh Alexander in protesting so that the girls in school can have their own bathroom privacy that
00:04:02.920 males wouldn't enter their bathroom. Anybody who would protest this with Josh Alexander they would be
00:04:08.640 cut off from transportation to the school. Now remember this is Renfrew County. It's the Catholic
00:04:14.960 school there called St. Joseph's believe it or not in Renfrew and they are cutting off people from
00:04:20.800 getting there with transportation, busing. That's massive in these rural communities because sometimes
00:04:25.920 they're 20, 30, 40, 50 kilometers away. So to cut off transportation is basically to cut them off
00:04:33.140 from the school altogether. So listen to this. They were threatened with being denied transportation to
00:04:39.300 the school. But in addition this young lady told me that a teacher in the classroom told them this.
00:04:46.420 This is a teacher speaking to the students about not participating in Josh Alexander's walkout
00:04:51.560 for privacy in girls' bathrooms for speaking up for these young ladies. The teacher tells him and I
00:04:57.460 quote, your reputations will be ruined. You don't want to associate with those people. So I mean this is
00:05:05.080 crazy indoctrination going on right in a supposedly Catholic school. In fact, the young lady told me
00:05:11.700 that, you know, about the school supposed to be Catholic. She said, well, the teaching of the church
00:05:17.920 doesn't seem to align with what the school is doing. And when I asked, you know, the young lady about what
00:05:25.280 her message would be to young people in high schools who find themselves in similar situations where they're put
00:05:31.780 under all this pressure and their own privacies are being violated and everything else by the woke
00:05:38.100 agenda, here's what she said. She said, it's important to not feel like you don't have a voice
00:05:44.440 or your opinion doesn't matter or that you're a horrible person if you think differently from everyone else.
00:05:52.380 You know, this is really reminiscent of what happened to Pope Benedict. Pope Benedict of late
00:06:01.200 memory, who we're still, you know, in the days after his funeral was still praying for the repose
00:06:07.280 of his soul. He had a lot of hardship in dealing with this issue as well. He tried his hardest to
00:06:13.600 bring forward the teaching of the church with love and with truth. And here's what happened to him.
00:06:20.340 He was on December 22nd, 2008, and he gave an address to the Roman Curia. He capitalized actually
00:06:27.940 on the popular ecology trend, calling for a human ecology, where we would respect the creator's
00:06:34.840 natural order of relationships between men and women. The Holy Father said the church must protect
00:06:40.860 man from self-destruction, he said. And these are quotes from Pope Benedict XVI, again, back in 2008,
00:06:49.580 right around Christmas time. He said, if the church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and
00:06:56.380 woman and demands that this order of creation be respected, this is not some antiquated metaphysics.
00:07:02.300 What is involved here is faith in the creator and a readiness to listen to the language of creation.
00:07:08.640 To disregard this, he said, would be the self-destruction of man himself, and hence the destruction of God's
00:07:15.780 own work. Now, obviously the Pope didn't say this kind of thing to be, you know, because he had some
00:07:21.980 kind of vedeta against gays or whatever, or trans people. No. He also didn't say this because he was
00:07:27.860 sadistic and wanted, or masochistic and wanted harm to himself. But sure enough, harm comes from the
00:07:35.560 woke world when you speak the truths of Christ. And he was preaching this, though, with love, the truth in
00:07:44.540 love. And it wasn't
00:07:46.740 only love for God, but it was also love for all of mankind, his human beings, his fellow human beings, who are
00:07:53.400 hurting themselves by these destructive sexual lifestyles. But for his remarks, he was castigated in the
00:07:59.680 mainstream press. And here are some of the news headlines at the time from 2008 against Pope
00:08:05.080 Benedict for saying what he did about God's plans for human sexuality. Pink News, a homosexual news
00:08:12.440 service, said in the UK, it read, this was their headline, Pope Benedict learned nothing from his
00:08:17.880 time in the Hitler Youth. And Pope Benedict's latest outburst justifies homophobic bullying and attacks.
00:08:26.280 Absolute insanity. But the coverage in the mainstream press was hardly, you know, less extreme. The San
00:08:35.020 Francisco Chronicle headline read, Pope Benedict did Christmas, preaching bigotry disguised as
00:08:40.480 compassion. The Times of London said, Christmas was never meant to be about this. So this kind of
00:08:47.740 persecution from the woke world comes despite our trying to do the best we can for God's truth in
00:08:55.740 love and charity. This courageous young man for whom we've got a life funder running and I encourage
00:09:01.680 you to support, but with whom we'll be speaking in just a few minutes. This is the John Henry Weston
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00:10:18.600 to the program. Josh, thank you so much for joining us in person. Thank you for having me. You're
00:10:24.840 actually one of the first guests here in our studio, so welcome. And I want to tell you on behalf of all
00:10:31.240 of our fans at Life State News, thank you. You have done an incredible thing here. And you're standing
00:10:37.720 up for family. And more important than that, actually, you're standing up for faith. And I
00:10:42.000 think that's the most beautiful thing. I want you to take us through the human element. So you get
00:10:47.140 there. First of all, you hear this on Sunday night, and then you get there on Monday. How did things
00:10:52.180 progress? I decided to only show up for the afternoon. Those were the two classes I was banned from.
00:10:56.920 So I showed up in the afternoon. I went into the school. And right at the front door, the principal
00:11:04.060 met me. And he was kind of awkward. He didn't say anything for the first few minutes. I just was
00:11:09.360 greeting students. Students were shaking my hand, and it was a bit of a welcome back. He didn't say
00:11:14.000 anything for the first couple of minutes until he finally kind of confused. He walked over and said,
00:11:20.040 could you leave? And I told him, I just respectfully asked him to speak to my lawyer if he wanted to
00:11:25.320 talk to me first. And that's kind of what would happen all day long. They just kept asking me to
00:11:30.700 leave. I'd go to my class, and they'd follow me. And the vice principal would actually write down
00:11:35.160 anything I said. And yeah, that's the entire day was spent like that. And they had just asked me to
00:11:40.180 leave the entire day. I just kept going to class. Wow, wow. So what's your thought at this point? I
00:11:45.480 mean, you've been accused of trespassing. What in the world does that mean? And what did your
00:11:52.140 lawyers make even talk about with you on it? About a couple hours after I got home from school,
00:11:56.600 my parents got this email that I now have a trespassing notice until January 31st at the
00:12:01.080 school. I think it's pretty ridiculous, but it goes to show there are true colors there. They're
00:12:05.840 afraid of the truth, so now they'll actually, I guess, arrest me if I return to school. And it's
00:12:10.720 pretty sad to think that that's what's happening in Canada, which is supposed to be a country that
00:12:14.700 respects the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but apparently not in this case. You have a
00:12:19.380 trespassing notice and till January 31st, but they've told you to stay away and yet you have
00:12:26.640 classes and then you're not coming to class. Are they calling you to say, hey, you're not in your
00:12:30.620 class as well? No, they haven't actually done that. I've had, there's been a couple emails from my
00:12:35.600 teachers and they've offered online education, but I mean, I think the last two years have gone to show
00:12:40.580 that that's a very inferior form of education, so I haven't taken them up on that. But we're coming to
00:12:45.780 the end of the semester now. They've suspended me twice. They've excluded me and now given me a
00:12:49.480 trespassing notice till January 31st. The semester's over by that time. And so it's a five-day
00:12:55.080 suspension I'm surfing right now, but the trespassing notice goes way beyond that. I'm not sure how that's
00:13:00.800 supposed to work, but we'll see. We at LifeSite want to support your case. I understand from your
00:13:06.960 lawyer that the next step will be for you to take this to the Human Rights Tribunal. And so we're going
00:13:13.380 to set up a LifeFunder for you. And I encourage people to support Josh because I mean, here's one
00:13:18.780 of the few examples of people actually standing up and doing the right thing. And we want to be able
00:13:23.100 to support him in that. So please go to LifeFunder.com and support Josh Alexander. So Josh, what are the
00:13:29.820 plans for your taking this up at the Human Rights Tribunal? We're looking at it obviously as a case
00:13:34.980 for religious discrimination. There seems to be a little bit of confusion over my appeal. They don't
00:13:41.040 really want to let me appeal. So yeah, we're going to take it up to the next notch because that's kind
00:13:45.000 of where this kind of case belongs. It's a classic case of religious discrimination. So I'm willing to
00:13:50.240 take it there and we can only rely on the supporters to donate. And it's going to be a difficult run
00:13:56.400 considering we're up against a pretty big law firm and the entire school board, but we're taking it
00:14:01.160 on anyways. You're a young man. How old are you right now? 16. Okay, so you're still 16 years old.
00:14:06.240 It's incredible that you have to face this for one thing, but you're doing it with real grace.
00:14:10.520 There's a pro-trans whatever group that was confronting you. They called you a terrorist.
00:14:16.460 What's your response to that? Actually, I put out a response on social media right on their platform
00:14:22.060 and they immediately deleted it. They were insinuating that I had plans to act violently
00:14:27.880 and I obviously countered that and told them I was there for peace. I was up for a respectful
00:14:34.480 discussion. And yeah, that was completely censored. I actually did a live stream with Freedom Fighters
00:14:41.340 Canada that was deleted off Facebook immediately. And yeah, so it's been any time I go to counter
00:14:48.640 anything, they kind of just censor it. So that's where we're at.
00:14:51.700 Delete it. I think there's a beauty in that. The fact is you're threatening to them, not in that
00:14:58.080 you're physically threatening to people or anything like that. You're threatening to their ideology.
00:15:02.380 It is an ideology. And they don't want to show that you are a young man who's totally peaceful
00:15:09.080 and totally sensible. And you're like their worst case scenario because here you are all about peace,
00:15:16.740 love and dialogue, which they claim to have on their side. And yet they're all about censorship,
00:15:22.380 accusing you of falsehood and banning you from everything. And then, but they have the support
00:15:29.920 of this Catholic school, which is completely outrageous.
00:15:34.320 It's interesting. Way back in November at the original walkout, the counter protesters from
00:15:38.920 those pride organizations and even the union that got bussed up, they were chanting love, not hate.
00:15:45.920 So I had the mic there and we had our whole sound system set up and we just started chanting it back
00:15:51.120 at them. And they completely like ruffled feathers. They didn't know what to do.
00:15:56.160 And so like they tried censoring me online. So then I did it in person and they just panicked.
00:16:00.680 They didn't know what to do.
00:16:01.620 Yeah. Well, it's great. It is true. The message of those supportive of the family and of the faith
00:16:07.700 and of freedom. That's our message. Love, not hate. And so we can chant it right back because that was
00:16:14.060 the whole point from the beginning. When the confrontations happened in the beginning, I
00:16:19.680 don't remember, but in historically we had focus on the family, uh, had a conference called love
00:16:25.740 wins out. And, and it's about true love for people with same sex attraction and people with gender
00:16:31.500 dysphoria or whatever you want to call it. It's about loving them enough to tell them that this is
00:16:35.980 harmful for you and showing the exact, the examples being this right now, countless men and women
00:16:41.440 who have de-transitioned and been so harmed by what has happened to them. And we can show the
00:16:49.220 folks, Hey, this is what happens to you. And you don't say that to be popular. You don't say that to
00:16:55.040 be, um, um, given kudos because you're not, you're given, you're accused of being terrorist. Um, you're
00:17:02.060 expelled and all sorts of things, but you do it anyway, out of love and concern for these people,
00:17:07.580 because it's true. It's about love and not hate about your Christian convictions. Because, uh, I, I
00:17:13.280 mean, it's one thing that for Catholics like myself is very shameful. The true message of the church has
00:17:19.340 always been one from where you're coming from. And yet you are voicing this as a 16 year old,
00:17:25.060 much more eloquently in your behavior than the whole leadership of this so-called Catholic school.
00:17:32.100 And what's truly scandalous, the school is called St. Joseph's. It's in Renfrew and it is
00:17:37.560 the Renfrew district, uh, Catholic district school board. And the crime is, it's St. Joseph's high
00:17:44.680 school. St. Joseph is head of the Holy Family, uh, that everybody knows, but in the, in the Catholic
00:17:50.340 church, he's regarded as the defender of virgins of purity, um, and protector of the family. It's like
00:17:56.880 a nightmare that this is happening. It's the opposite of the truth and opposite of everything that the
00:18:01.980 Catholic church stands for. But I'd like to hear it from you. Um, you, how do your Christian
00:18:06.740 convictions play into this? Well, as a Christian and just as a man in general, I feel a responsibility
00:18:12.540 to stand up to this kind of nonsense, especially when a female, a young female addresses me about
00:18:19.000 this and more than one. So I, I immediately felt a conviction to do something about that. So I did.
00:18:23.640 But, uh, looking at the Catholic church, I, I myself am not Catholic, but very similar belief
00:18:28.620 system. And, uh, I'm kind of shocked at how little response there has been from the church.
00:18:33.380 I even phoned one, uh, one of the local churches the other day and they, uh, like the pastor
00:18:38.720 just told me he didn't want to speak to me. I, I couldn't imagine a leader of a church telling
00:18:43.440 a 16 year old kid that he wouldn't speak with them, wouldn't even begin to have a discussion.
00:18:48.940 If I was a member of the Catholic church, I'd be completely embarrassed by the actions of
00:18:52.140 the school now that they're claiming they're Catholic. And, uh, it's, it's kind of disappointing
00:18:56.300 to see the lack of response from the local Catholic church.
00:18:59.380 That is unfortunately the, the times we're living in, but there are a lot of, uh, Catholics
00:19:04.640 supporting you and praying for you right now. Um, and I know at, uh, LifeSite News, we are
00:19:10.580 behind you a hundred percent. We're going to do whatever we can to not only get your story
00:19:14.380 out, to hopefully get you some funds to continue in your fight. And, um, what are your next steps?
00:19:20.120 I know you've been doing a lot of speaking already, um, as part of your organization,
00:19:24.340 save Canada. Tell us what that's about and tell us what your next plans are in terms of
00:19:27.580 speaking around.
00:19:28.060 Oh, we've got a, there's kind of our rallying symbol that's been around for about two years
00:19:33.060 now. Um, it started during the, uh, the COVID restrictions and all that. So yeah, we organized
00:19:38.960 the student walk-outs during the Freedom Convoy and we were kind of known for that, but, uh,
00:19:42.840 we're kind of just, just assembling people right now across the country. And it's been kind
00:19:48.960 of a, uh, rallying point. It's a very simple organization, but, uh, we don't, we were kind
00:19:54.700 of trying to formulate a plan from now. It's been kind of chaotic with everything that's going
00:19:59.060 on. It's been a nonstop fight for the last two years, but, uh, we're, we're trying to formulate
00:20:03.560 a little bit better and come forward with an action plan soon.
00:20:07.120 I know you're in the thick of it right now, but there's got to be a lot of young people
00:20:11.380 like yourself who are thinking, boy, I wish I could do something like that, or I wish I could,
00:20:16.940 what's your message to that?
00:20:18.340 It's easy. Just go out and do it. And, uh, the consequences are more a compliment. Uh, just keep,
00:20:26.120 keep pushing, keep fighting. Don't give up. Trust in God and, uh, you'll have your back.
00:20:32.260 Amen to that. Josh Alexander, it is an honor to meet you. God bless you.
00:20:38.860 James Kitchen. Welcome to the program. Thanks for having me. Let's begin as we always do with
00:20:45.640 the sign of the cross in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy ghost. Amen.
00:20:52.560 So we have this new breaking news and it's, it's very shocking for those people who
00:20:58.560 value freedom and still value what is supposed to be Catholic education. But obviously this has been
00:21:05.580 a travesty. We learned some time ago, had Josh on the program that, you know, he was threatened with,
00:21:14.060 uh, all sorts of things. If he were to carry out this work for these young ladies in his class and
00:21:21.860 in his school to defend their right to privacy in their own bathrooms. Um, the, the school then
00:21:28.060 threatened anyone who would join in such protest with, um, suspension, expulsion, whatnot. He is
00:21:35.020 now told by the school that he's trespassing when he goes back to school. If you could, James,
00:21:41.840 give us the latest details. Over the Christmas break, just after Josh's 20 day suspension ended,
00:21:47.220 he was given conditions on how he would return. And, um, the worst of those conditions was that he would
00:21:53.720 be excluded from two of his classes. Now, the best that we could understand the reasoning behind this
00:21:58.560 was that those two particular classes were going to have two transgender students in those classes
00:22:04.600 that have been in Josh, Josh's other classes. And of course, the concern, I think from the school's
00:22:09.720 perspective or the transgender students perspective is that they really didn't like what Josh had to say.
00:22:13.440 They really didn't like the expression of his religious beliefs about, you know, switching genders
00:22:17.660 or not about how there's only two genders and about how boys shouldn't be going into girls'
00:22:21.560 bathrooms. And so, you know, under the guise of safety, the school said to him, look, you can't
00:22:27.040 be in these classes. And so Josh, so Josh hired me as his lawyer with a Christmas break. We talked,
00:22:32.840 I said, look, I think that's religious discrimination. I think it's unlawful. Um, he said, well, yeah,
00:22:37.980 I don't want to comply with that. I don't want to comply with something. It's unlawful. So what
00:22:41.480 happened is I told the school, I wrote a letter to the principal and I said, look, this, this is an
00:22:45.220 unlawful condition. It's, it's exclusion and segregation. And it's on the basis of his religious
00:22:50.460 beliefs, because the only reason you're doing this is because, um, his express religious beliefs are,
00:22:55.440 you know, the, the, the students in the school can't tolerate those. And so they're, they're
00:23:00.000 asking him to not be in that space. And that's just blatant religious discrimination. So it's
00:23:04.380 unlawful. Why don't you rescind that condition? He'll come to class and go to all four of his classes
00:23:08.540 and we'll try to sort this out. And the school's response was, was very dismissive and said, no,
00:23:13.440 we don't care if you disagree with this. This is what we say. And, you know, you have to do it.
00:23:16.440 And if you don't, that's, you know, too bad. And so I said, well, you know, he, Josh is just,
00:23:20.860 it just isn't going to comply with an awful condition. So, uh, once I told the principal
00:23:25.300 that he wrote back on Sunday night, the night before Josh was going to go back to school on
00:23:29.540 January 8th, he said, well, look, now I'm going to order an exclusion, which, which is a technical
00:23:34.400 term under the legislation that a principal can exclude a student from school. If they think that
00:23:39.080 that student's presence will be some sort of threat or danger or, you know, potential disruption
00:23:45.460 physically or mentally to the students. And which, which is really a bit of a stretch,
00:23:49.820 obviously. So what happened then is Josh said, well, I mean, you know, look, this isn't awful.
00:23:53.440 I'm going to go to school anyways. So on Monday he did, he went to school, he went to those two
00:23:57.280 classes he was not supposed to go to. Um, he got followed around somewhat by the assistant
00:24:01.760 principal. You'll probably hear from him about that. And then he went home. Uh, everything was
00:24:06.140 peaceful, right? Um, of course he's not, he's not out to actually, you know, bully these,
00:24:11.660 these transgender students, right? There's no actual bullying going on, but of course,
00:24:14.940 that's the word being thrown around because unfortunately in our new world, uh, bullying
00:24:20.280 means expressing ideas that somebody else disagrees with. And, um, that's, that's how we get to
00:24:26.060 this strange situation. So he goes home Monday night, late Monday night, I get a trespass notice
00:24:31.220 and a further suspension, uh, saying that Josh is suspended from school for the rest of the week
00:24:35.740 and barred from school property for the rest of the month of January. So that's where we're at
00:24:40.020 right now. School board has hired lawyers, big firm in Ottawa. I am in communication
00:24:43.800 with them, um, written communication. And so I'm hopeful there'll be some oral communication
00:24:48.680 between myself and counsel for the school board. And we'll see where this goes next.
00:24:53.000 This is unbelievable. We know Josh to be someone who is not only peaceful, but he's coming at
00:25:00.200 this from a truly Christian charitable perspective. It said nothing to do with being anti-trans or anything
00:25:07.980 like that. It had to do with protecting these young ladies in his school who approached him
00:25:13.400 asking for help to get privacy back in their bathrooms. These are young ladies who were, didn't
00:25:19.500 want, uh, in their bathrooms, males, biological males in their bathrooms. And that should have
00:25:25.620 been a totally obvious thing. So here's this young man who first went to the principal privately
00:25:31.580 himself, like how biblical can you get? And the principal says, Oh, I'm not gonna listen to you
00:25:36.560 unless some of those girls come with you. He finds a girl to go with him to the principal,
00:25:41.680 goes to the principal and still do nothing. Then he says, okay, now I'm going to do a protest.
00:25:47.740 And then this enveloped. What's your thought on how that played out? And what's your perspective
00:25:53.740 on Josh Alexander?
00:25:55.400 I think he's a very courageous young man. Um, he's principled and he's, um, he's doing what
00:26:00.860 should be happening a whole lot more often, um, amongst, amongst men and women who are much older
00:26:05.220 than he is. Um, so it's a, it's a real honor to work with them and to see this. Um, you know,
00:26:10.160 I think part of the problem with all this is, is it, is it is really difficult as a high school
00:26:13.300 student to stand up, particularly a young, a young woman, um, to speak out and stand up and say,
00:26:17.860 this is wrong. It's got to stop. We just keep going down this slippery slope towards things that
00:26:22.820 are, you know, that are not Christian and not morally right and not good for society and not good
00:26:26.860 for me and my friends. We're trying to be safe and private in our spaces. Uh, it's not good for
00:26:31.160 the, for the, for the kids themselves who are living in this weird space. I mean, talk to anybody
00:26:34.800 who's detransitioned. Um, it's, it's a really awful experience. I mean, I've, I've, I've talked to and
00:26:40.020 represented somebody who's gone through that. Um, it's horrendous. I think what he's doing is,
00:26:44.260 is really, is really good. It needs to be done. Um, but obviously in the world we live in,
00:26:48.360 it's very, very, you know, you go through a lot of sacrifice and hardship in order to do it because
00:26:52.340 the powers that be want to censor you and want to punish you for doing it because they don't want
00:26:56.160 you to speak up, right? We don't, they don't want these perspectives shared, but yeah, I think what
00:27:00.360 the school is doing is, is really unfortunate. It's interesting because it's in the name of
00:27:04.740 discrimination. It's in the name of non-discrimination and we're getting discrimination. It's in the name
00:27:08.880 of tolerance and diversity and equity that we're treating somebody as a second-class citizen. We're
00:27:13.380 excluding them, right? We're censoring them. We're telling them that they're not acceptable because
00:27:17.680 of their views and beliefs. And, um, if we could just be a little more sensible and, and, and,
00:27:23.800 and stop thinking in this, in this crazy woke way, maybe we could find a balance where we
00:27:28.560 could actually somehow accommodate both. I mean, that is the idea behind the legislation
00:27:32.840 and that's, that's behind all this is the Ontario Human Rights Code, right? The school
00:27:35.840 says we have to have boys and girls Washington's the Ontario Human Rights Code. I don't actually
00:27:40.680 think that's true, but, um, you know, let's, let's back that up and sort out how the Ontario
00:27:46.520 Human Rights Code actually protects religious beliefs and sex as, as a, as a girl as well.
00:27:50.920 And if you're not trying to prioritize one right over the other, then you can probably
00:27:55.120 find a way to accommodate everybody, right? I mean, nobody's saying trans kids can't go
00:27:59.220 to the school. At least I don't think they are. They're just saying, look, if you're here
00:28:02.320 and you have a penis, you can't go into the girls Washington. And if you're here, um, you're
00:28:06.500 going to hear religious beliefs that say, um, things you don't like, and you're going to
00:28:10.300 have to be okay and put up with that. That's actual equality. That's actually giving everybody
00:28:15.260 the right to be in a space and to protect themselves, you know, and to express their beliefs
00:28:20.380 within reason, right? We're going too far on one side saying as a boy, you can go into
00:28:25.240 a girls Washington if you want to and saying to somebody else, and if you don't like that,
00:28:28.780 you can't say anything. That's not a balance.
00:28:31.340 What's truly phenomenal is that this is in a school that calls itself Catholic. But before
00:28:38.260 we go there, it's truly Orwellian. As you said, the inequality is just so blatant that
00:28:46.620 the double standard is just unreal. But in addition to that, you have this situation where
00:28:52.800 we are dealing with adults. It's the adults in the room who are really guilty here. This
00:29:03.140 child who is, uh, you know, gender confused is being pushed to adopt a lifestyle that's
00:29:13.360 very harmful and God forbid a surgery that's going to harm him or her for the rest of his
00:29:19.680 life. And it's the adults who are truly responsible here. A lot of the adults in the room can see
00:29:27.620 how damaging this is. They've seen those who've detransitioned, they've seen the harm that's
00:29:34.380 already caused, and they know the harm that's happening against these young ladies in wanting
00:29:41.840 their privacy and it being stripped from them. How disgusting, how deplorable. It really does
00:29:47.580 baffle the imagination. I'd love to hear your take.
00:29:49.760 It hits the nail on the head is you have all these adults with their political ideologies and
00:29:54.380 their political agendas. And they seem all too willing to not protect more vulnerable,
00:30:00.220 younger people in society as they, as they push that. Um, I think we saw that with, with, uh, the,
00:30:05.680 the, the, the masks in school issue, um, a couple years ago. Right. And, and a lot of people comment on
00:30:11.080 the fact, this is the teachers, um, that mostly want this, or this is some of the woke parents.
00:30:15.080 What about the poor kids that got to wear this thing all day in school? Um, that's a little more
00:30:18.880 trivial. This is a little more serious, right? It's, it's these, these, these adults who have this idea
00:30:23.240 about transgenderism and they, they tacitly encourage it amongst kids, which is, which is
00:30:28.340 psychologically harmful for the kids that are going through it. And then it, and then it's harmful
00:30:31.400 for the girls who have to deal with it. I mean, we're, we're talking about the bathrooms and this
00:30:35.080 has been a huge problem in sports, right? I mean, that just makes me, it makes me sick that girls
00:30:40.000 have to be scared to go to the bathroom and they can't even enjoy joining sports now because they're
00:30:44.180 scared of getting hurt or they're just, they're not going to be competitive. And, um, it's, it's really,
00:30:49.060 it's, it's, it's awful if you care about women, um, as, as, as anybody should, but it's also just
00:30:55.200 so strange because it used to be that our society cared a lot about women and talked about how bad
00:31:00.060 our society was of caring for women, uh, patriarchal, whatever you go back 10, 15 years into the,
00:31:05.180 into the era where feminism was bigger than transgenderism. And, you know, this type of thing
00:31:09.640 would have been unthinkable, right? To treat women this way. And now all of a sudden we've moved on to
00:31:13.600 the next weird woke thing and we're throwing girls and women under the bus. And when, when an actual
00:31:18.600 feminist comes out and says, this isn't okay, uh, we start throwing the feminists under the bus,
00:31:22.800 or at least that's what the woke left does. They eat their own. It's just really bizarre. I mean,
00:31:27.400 let's, let's, let's just, let's just narrow it down and talk about, Hey, what about actually
00:31:31.880 treating women well, which is supposedly a really big deal, because if we actually believed that
00:31:37.000 we wouldn't let people with penises go into change rooms, uh, uh, bathrooms. And we, and we
00:31:43.220 wouldn't, we wouldn't let men who are, uh, undeniably, uh, physically more fit go into
00:31:48.520 women's sports and either hurt them or make them uncompetitive. That's just treating women very,
00:31:53.020 very badly. Why are we doing that? But even more bizarre than that, and I, I hate to say this,
00:31:58.800 but it's, it's the worst thing of all is that this is supposed to be a Catholic school. Now you
00:32:04.500 yourself are a Protestant, you're a member of the Liberty Coalition Canada, but you're faithful
00:32:10.680 Christian. And you know, as I do, that the teachings of all Christianity, Catholicism included,
00:32:18.480 have always been and can't change from being respectful of God's order of creation. He created
00:32:27.700 them male and female. We have no right to undo that. Um, he set up the order of marriage for one
00:32:37.420 man and one woman. He designed our sexuality to be lived out, not to harm us, but to help us to
00:32:46.200 fulfill our lives. And yet we're going against his plan for that. And here we are with this young man
00:32:54.080 who himself also a Christian, but not a Catholic, but in a Catholic school, figuring, I guess there
00:32:58.820 would be some more respect for God's order of creation. They're faced with torture from, you
00:33:05.760 know, this, this kind of veritable torture from a so-called Catholic principle in a Catholic school.
00:33:11.440 It is unbelievable. And the number of Catholics who are outraged at this is, is really quite something
00:33:18.720 we we've had many, many calls into the school already. I'm sure those are going to continue.
00:33:23.320 We've also got a fundraiser set up for him, a life funder, we call it. It's like a GoFundMe
00:33:29.980 for Josh and for his case. What's going on now from a legal perspective?
00:33:37.180 Well, we are attempting to appeal the two suspensions Josh has received. And the plan from,
00:33:43.780 in addition to that, the plan on our end is if this continues, if Josh isn't permitted to actually go
00:33:48.620 back to school, to all of his classes, um, there's going to have to be human rights complaint
00:33:53.120 because, um, you know, legally I think, I think the biggest thing that's going on here is, is the
00:33:57.800 blatant religious discrimination. And I think that needs to be exposed. You know, there's this double
00:34:02.600 standard, um, this protection of some rights, but trampling of others, it needs to be exposed.
00:34:08.200 Um, that's what this is all about. Obviously he does have a right to some degree of free speech.
00:34:13.080 Like most of what he said has been on social media and class debates. And if you want to talk about
00:34:17.180 students having, having, having free speech, those would be like the two central places they would
00:34:20.960 have it. Right. There is some limitation. Obviously students can't just constantly be outside with a
00:34:25.580 bullhorn, you know, otherwise it disrupts school. But if there's a class debate on these issues, as
00:34:30.300 there's going to be, there probably shouldn't be this hot topic issues, you need to let every student
00:34:34.820 express their, their belief. If it's peaceful, right. I don't care how, how offensive somebody
00:34:39.040 else finds it. Right. I mean, are you going to, are you going to take somebody who doesn't believe
00:34:42.480 in God at the Catholic school at that time? He says, I don't believe in God anymore. Are you
00:34:46.440 going to, are you going to shut him up and censor him? Are you going to let him speak his beliefs
00:34:49.720 in a class debate? That's where this came from, right? They didn't like what Josh had to say
00:34:54.120 on, on, on this peaceful protest he had that was, that was not disrupting school. Uh, and they didn't
00:34:59.300 like what he said in, in, in the social media, didn't like what he said in class debates, but he has a
00:35:03.140 right as a student, a free speech, right. But more importantly, a religious right as a religious
00:35:07.760 person expressing religious beliefs, uh, to say that. And, uh, if you're going to punish him,
00:35:12.760 it's just, it's discrimination and amongst other things. So, uh, if that continues, that's the plan
00:35:17.800 legally is to bring the human rights complaint. We'll see, this is going to largely depend on how
00:35:21.400 the, how the school reacts. I mean, if they just double down and say, we don't care where this is,
00:35:25.420 this is the path we've chosen, then, you know, we have to take legal action. If we can sort
00:35:29.380 something out, Josh can go back to school, then maybe we, you know, we do that and we just appeal
00:35:33.980 the suspensions. It really just depends on how the school wants to, the school board wants to
00:35:38.980 continue to respond. Amazing, James. Well, I want to thank you and Liberty Coalition Canada for taking
00:35:44.100 on this case. I'd really like to see other people follow, uh, in Josh's footsteps and, and, uh,
00:35:49.780 respectfully, but boldly speak up, uh, whether it's your workplace, your church, your school,
00:35:54.840 your circle of influence. Um, if you actually believe this is wrong, I mean, now is your time
00:35:59.620 to stand up. If Josh can do it, uh, you can do it and it needs to be done because as long as you
00:36:04.140 self-censor, we're just going to keep sliding down that path where censorship is more common
00:36:09.760 and more easy to achieve. And eventually it'll come a day when you won't even be able to speak
00:36:13.920 up, even if you decided you wanted to, because you would now have the courage. Um, so do it now
00:36:18.120 while you still can. Amen to that. James Kitchen of Liberty Coalition Canada. Thanks for being with us.
00:36:23.440 Thank you.
00:36:24.840 Hi everyone. This is John Henry Weston. We hope you enjoyed this program. To see more like it,
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