Keywords:
acceptance, dialogue, tolerance, opportunity, change, advocacy, queer labour
acceptance, dialogue, tolerance, opportunity, change, advocacy, queer labour
Transcript
Mary: I think sometimes you have to make your own space too.
Tara: Right
Mary: I don’t know if that was automatically here, I guess just kind of a collision of circumstances. And we, we ended up, there were about 4 or 5 of us, and, and we didn’t really talk about it, but we came out for whatever reason.
Tara: Right
Mary: We started with bringing spouses to social events with the staff, and it just kind of went from there. I mean, to the point where, where they um, the teacher I was telling you about, who said I was a pioneer, when he and his partner got married, the staff bought them a gift--
Tara: Wow
Mary: and presented it at a staff meeting. Now that was a big step, I mean that didn’t happen when I got married-
Tara: No
Mary: -But that was you know, 13 years ago. So things are moving forward. I think it is possible, I think there is, the, the church and the institution has been talking at us about how the church feels about these issues, and it’s time for it to be more of a dialogue, it’s time for us to start you know, talking back. Um, and uh, I think that, you know, generally speaking, in my experience, schools are populated with um, very intelligent and tolerant people, who given the opportunity to, to be that way, will often choose that and will, will see the, the you know, less tolerant people as the outliers as opposed to the norm.
Mary: I think sometimes you have to make your own space too.
Tara: Right
Mary: I don’t know if that was automatically here, I guess just kind of a collision of circumstances. And we, we ended up, there were about 4 or 5 of us, and, and we didn’t really talk about it, but we came out for whatever reason.
Tara: Right
Mary: We started with bringing spouses to social events with the staff, and it just kind of went from there. I mean, to the point where, where they um, the teacher I was telling you about, who said I was a pioneer, when he and his partner got married, the staff bought them a gift--
Tara: Wow
Mary: and presented it at a staff meeting. Now that was a big step, I mean that didn’t happen when I got married-
Tara: No
Mary: -But that was you know, 13 years ago. So things are moving forward. I think it is possible, I think there is, the, the church and the institution has been talking at us about how the church feels about these issues, and it’s time for it to be more of a dialogue, it’s time for us to start you know, talking back. Um, and uh, I think that, you know, generally speaking, in my experience, schools are populated with um, very intelligent and tolerant people, who given the opportunity to, to be that way, will often choose that and will, will see the, the you know, less tolerant people as the outliers as opposed to the norm.