Pressure rises on NSW Anglican schools

Sydney Anglican leaders are encouraging Anglican school principals to uphold policies in line with the Church’s position on same-sex relationships.
Archbishop Peter Jensen outlined his views in an extensive interview with Richard Glover on ABC 702 last month.

The temperature around same-sex relationships in high schools is rising after the Church of England Grammar School (’Churchie’) in Brisbane decided to stop a group of homosexual Year 12 students from bringing their boyfriends to the school’s June formal.

Media pressure forced other Anglican schools to clarify their policy on same-sex couples at school social events.

Individual Anglican schools are free to make their own decision on policies related to school functions.

Archbishop Jensen says he supports civil rights for same-sex couples but internal church policies must be in line with the Bible’s teaching that homosexual behaviour is a sin.

While public schools are bound by the Anti-Discrimination Act, Anglican schools in NSW have an exemption on religious grounds.

Yet Anti-Discrimination Board president Stepan Kerkyasharian has told the media he does not want to see any NSW schools following Churchie’s lead.

“I would not want to see any private school in NSW doing something like this… it’s quite wrong for a school to discriminate against any student,” he was reported as saying. 

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