After bravely coming out in a moving blog post last week, Australian author Will Kostakis was shocked to be told he would no longer be welcome to speak at a Catholic school.
Despite having spoken to students at the same school just one year earlier, the award-winning author of young adult fiction was told his latest work, The Sidekicks, might “not be appropriate” for students.
In an email, published in full on Kostakis’ blog, a teacher from De La Salle College in Revesby Heights wrote that he was concerned about potential backlash from parents.
“I have nothing personally against you and it sounds like a touching story that [I] would love to read, however I feel it isn’t appropriate,” he wrote.
The teacher went on to say that Kostakis would be welcome at the school in June if he promised to deliver the same speech from the previous year, focusing on his journey to becoming an author and his earlier novel The First Third.
Kostakis responded by pointing out that his first book also dealt with young male characters, coming to terms with their sexuality and indeed, their queerness.
“That plotline wasn’t for Catholic schools, it wasn’t for parents, it was for students, students like me, who felt less than adequate because they loved someone ‘they weren’t supposed to’,” he wrote.
He described the difficulties of his own ‘coming out’ and said he was grateful to his teachers for selecting texts that “championed diversity”:
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“Some people were uncomfortable reading about two boys kissing, but it prompted discussion and working through prejudice. And even though I was not out, I felt like less of an outsider. I felt safe.”
Kostakis was prompted to go public about his homosexuality after a “close friend” was diagnosed with cancer.
That friend, as it emerged in the blog post titled “Reintroducing Myself”, was his first boyfriend.
“He is my close friend, and we used to date,” he wrote.
“He was my first relationship, the confirmation this wasn’t a phase, and that it could be just as wild, messy, lovely, perfect as hetero love. He was significant.
“He is significant.”
Kostakis ends his correspondence with the teacher advising that while it would be wise professionally to present to the students he can not because, for his own 16-year-old self, “this is personal”.
“All the very best for the future, and I hope you find the courage my teachers did,” he ends.
** Feature image via Twitter/WillKostakis
Top Comments
There is a bigger issue here. These debates will keep happening because in western society we are trying to have a bob each way. We are supposed to be tolerant of all different lifestyles, and that's all very fine when these views do not clash. For instance I hate olives but I'm not going to stop other people from having olives. However what if I joined a club that said that eating olives is a sin, then fairly obviously I'm going to object if others eat olives.
So we live in a society where governments give tax payer funding to religions that say sex before marriage is wrong and homosexuality is wrong and individuals can not discriminate against anyone with that belief. But on the other hand the same government that says this also tells us that we can't discriminate against people who have had sex before marriage or are homosexual.
This is why the system of "tolerating everything" doesn't work.
As a society we either have to make a decision this is right, therefore the opposite is wrong. Eg religion is right and therefore sex before marriage/homosexuality is a sin OR sex before marriage/homosexuality are not sins therefore religion can not be right or tolerated.
The only other alternative to this is that both groups can do what they like within their own groups, so if a gay organisation wishes to refuse to have a religious person there they may do so, and equally if a religious organisation refuses to have a gay person there they may do so.
But if you go down this pathway you must remove government funding for both groups (I would think this in practice would only apply to religions as I doubt gay groups get government funding though certainly there would be some gay based activities that would probably attract government help)
The point I'm making is that this "let's tolerate sexuality and let's tolerate those who oppose it" mindset that we live in doesn't work. We have to make a decision which lifestyle we want to live in.
This is what there should be a plebiscite about.
"Do you believe in an individuals right to freedom to pursue sexuality in the following forms, sex before marriage or if they prefer gay or bisexual sex (all of course with consenting adults)
OR do you believe that adults should only have sex within marriage?"
Whatever way the plebiscite goes then we have to support that group and withdraw funding or even make the other groups activities illegal.
I know it's draconian but this situation that we live in where we have a bet each way is causing constant conflict between the opposing beliefs.
A well constructed post.
Omigosh they live in another world, don't they. Why would anyone want to be a part of that backward instution?