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9 September 2009 | Interviews | Gender
Before Christ
Uruguayan HR organizations reject decision by Catholic schools of excluding homosexual or divorced teachers
2:05 minutes
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When the generally hermetic documents of the Catholic Church in Uruguay become publiclly known, the public opinion is often surprised and outraged.
In terms of gender, some of their positions seem to be “out of the agenda”, and others seem not to belong to the first decade of the 21st century.
The Episcopal Conference, made up by bishops of all the country, establishes in its “guidelines” the incompatibility of working in a Catholic education centre if one chooses homosexuality or divorce.
The document makes reference to divorced people who get married again, and homosexual people who are considered to “have made a different choice than the ideas of the church and who have to be shown that it is not convenient for them to work in that institution” .
This issue was made public through a weekly newspaper, which consulted a spokesperson from the Uruguayan Association of Catholic Education, who stated it is difficult to reconcile the options of the education centres with the choices of teachers, that is, homosexual teachers.
This guideline does not only go against common sense but also international anti.discriminatory regulations, according to a group of organizations from the Inter American Platform for Human Rights, Democracy and Development in Uruguay.
This Platform, which is present in sixteen countries, issued a statement considering the guidelines of the Church as a threat to the freedom of work.
“It is the first time in Uruguay that a religious institution claims the right to choose its staff, not based on their excellence, human values, intelligence, or competence, but on their sexual orientation. What the ECU and AUDEC have stated constitutes an implicit threat to the working stability of the people involved, and promotes hate towards those people, which is a crime punished by our Law” , the declaration reads.
Real World Radio interviewed Elena Fonseca, member of the feminist organization Cotidiano Mujer, member of the Platform.
“We are extremely worried about this decision and we ask ourselves what is the difference between a homosexual teacher and one who is not?”, said Fonseca. And she added: “What is going to happen with the students ? Are they going to ask them about their sexual orientation? We believe this is a very serious issue that goes against the principle of inclusion which should lead the life of our country”.
