A teacher was sentenced to Mountjoy jail for contempt of court after refusing to address a transgender pupil using gender-neutral pronouns.
Enoch Burke was detained yesterday morning for violating a court order not to work at or be physically present at his Westmeath school.
It is insane that I will be escorted from this courtroom to a place of jail, but I will not give up my Christian convictions, Mr. Burke said after Judge Michael Quinn’s decision.
Wilson’s Hospital School’s board of management’s attorney said the request for Mr. Burke’s commitment to jail was made with a “sad heart,” but that her client was left with little alternative since Mr. Burke continued to attend the school in spite of the court order it had received last week.
He refused to refer to a transitioning kid as “they” rather as “he,” as requested by the youngster and their parents in May and permitted by the Church of Ireland school, which is where the argument got started.
The day before the start of the fall semester, this led to his suspension awaiting the conclusion of a disciplinary procedure.
According to testimony given in court, he had refused to stay away from the school during his paid leave during that suspension and would instead sit in an empty classroom while claiming to be at work.
I am a teacher and I don’t want to go to jail, Mr. Burke said to Judge Quinn. Since I was in my classroom this morning when I was arrested, I want to be there today.
He claimed to adore his pupils, to whom he taught German, politics, history, and debate.
I like my school, which lives up to the slogan Res Non Verba (actions speak louder than words), but I’m here today because I vowed not to refer to boys as girls.
Transgenderism is against my Christian beliefs, he said. It is against the Bible, the Church of Ireland’s ethos, and the values of my school.
It is astonishing and repugnant that someone’s religious convictions on this subject should ever be used as justification for an accusation of wrongdoing, Mr. Burke stated in reference to his suspension.
“My religious practices are not improper.” They are not serious offences. Never will they be. They mean a lot to me. I won’t ever betray them or deny them, and I won’t ever submit to a command that would make me do either. Simply put, I am unable to do it.
His suspension, in his words, was “unreasonable, unjust, and unfair.”
“The gravity of suspension has been dumbed down,” he said. It is a significant move.
Particularly in the profession of a teacher, where one is so close to a big number of local residents, it has ruined my excellent reputation and my good name.
It casts a blotch on my otherwise spotless teaching career.
According to Mr. Burke, his students thought highly of him and described him as a person with “claimed principles and beliefs.”
He questioned how he could go back to school and submit to what he saw as being “manifestly wrong” and a “violation of my conscience.”
According to Mr. Burke, “teachers are being compelled to participate all throughout this nation… they are being pushed to use the pronoun “they” instead of either “he” or “she,” he said in court.
Burke’s disobedience of a court injunction forced the board of management, represented by Rosemary Mallon BL, to request that Burke be sent to jail, she told Judge Michael Quinn.
We are requesting a forceful order, not a punitive one. We are only asking Mr. Burke to obey the directive.
She said, “Mr. Burke is willfully violating this order, he is thus in contempt, and he has made it apparent that he would appear at the school [today] if he is not put to jail.
The school’s worries over the continuous disturbance to the pupils remain.”
She pointed out that Mr. Burke may present his case both during the school’s disciplinary hearing this month and in court tomorrow, when the injunction granted last week is scheduled to be reviewed.
Judge Quinn said that he was only deciding whether there had been a deliberate violation of a court order and was not making a decision on the merits of Mr. Burke’s arguments about his suspension or his religious beliefs.
He said that Mr. Burke might at any time absolve himself of his disdain by consenting to the order not to visit the school or make an effort to teach there.
Four garda, Mr. Burke’s father Seán, and his brother Isaac were with him when he appeared in court.