Despite its seeming simplicity, there are problems with the thinking that if Catholics don’t like being made to accept (not tolerate, but accept) homosexuality as perfectly normal and protected, they shouldn’t accept taxpayer funding for their schools — expressed most recently by Heather Mallick but a common argument recently. First, Bill 13 is being made part of the Education Act which governs education in Ontario so it might apply to independent schools and if it doesn’t yet, it only takes a bureaucrat’s snapped fingers or another vote at Queen’s Park to extend the Safer Schools Act provisions to private schools, and even homeschoolers. The second and larger problem is the very thinking that if the government pays for it, it gets to set all the rules. Where the state takes control of so many facets of life (education, health to name just two) it is nearly impossible to escape its tentacles, its economic influences; if the state gets to control everything simply by extending its genorisity — literally buying control — society is in trouble.
