A teacher who was jailed after he refused to use a transgender student’s gender neutral pronoun and ignored his teaching suspension has again refused to comply with a court order banning him from his school.
Enoch Burke, an evangelical Christian, told Ireland’s High Court that abiding by the injunction that forbade him to teach at his school after he refused to address a transitioning student as ‘they’ would ‘violate my religious beliefs and deny my God’.
Burke, who has spent two nights in a Dublin jail for contempt of court, told the judge today: ‘I can be a Christian in Mountjoy Prison or I can be a pagan acceptor of transgenderism outside it.’
Burke was suspended from his Westmeath school for refusing to address the transitioning student as ‘they’ rather than ‘he’, as requested by the pupil and their parents in May, and agreed to by the Church of Ireland school.
Burke was later arrested on Monday morning and jailed for breaching a temporary court order not to teach at Wilson’s Hospital School in Co Westmeath, or be physically present there.
The teacher had refused to stay away from school on paid leave, the court heard, and would sit in an empty classroom, declaring that he was there to work.
Burke returned to court today and the school’s board of management secured the renewal of an interlocutory injunction that banned the teacher from teaching at the school.
After Judge Michael Quinn made his ruling, Mr Burke said: ‘It is insanity that I will be led from this courtroom to a place of incarceration, but I will not give up my Christian beliefs.’
Teacher Enoch Burke (pictured on Monday being brought into the Bridewell Garda station in Garda custody) was arrested yesterday morning for breaching a court order not to teach at his Westmeath school, or be physically present there
Enoch Burke (pictured) refused to address a transitioning student as ‘they’ rather than ‘he’
Mr Burke told Judge Michael Quinn: ‘I am a teacher and I don’t want to go to prison. I want to be in my classroom today, that’s where I was this morning when I was arrested.’
‘I love my school, with its motto Res Non Verba, actions not words, but I am here today because I said I would not call a boy a girl,’ he said.
He added: ‘Transgenderism is against my Christian belief. It is contrary to the scriptures, contrary to the ethos of the Church of Ireland and of my school.’
Referring to his suspension, Mr Burke said: ‘It is extraordinary and reprehensible that someone’s religious beliefs on this matter could ever be taken as grounds for an allegation of misconduct.
‘My religious beliefs are not misconduct. They are not gross misconduct. They never will be. They are dear to me. I will never deny them and never betray them, and I will never bow to an order that would require me to do so. It is just not possible for me to do that.’
He described his suspension as ‘unreasonable, unjust and unfair’. He added: ‘There has been a dumbing down of the seriousness of suspension. It is a serious step.
‘It has tarnished my good character and my good name, particularly in the profession of a teacher, where one is so close to a large number of members of the local community. It leaves a stain on what has been, for me, an unblemished teaching record.’
He asked how he could return to school and bow to something he believed to be ‘manifestly wrong’, which he also described as a ‘violation of my conscience’. Mr Burke told the court that he believed that ‘around this country, teachers are being forced to participate… they are being forced to use the pronoun “they” instead of either “he” or “she”.’
Judge Quinn said he was not ruling on the merits of Mr Burke’s arguments regarding his religious belief. Pictured: Wilson’s Hospital School in County Westmeath, Ireland
Enoch Burke (pictured centre with his brother Isaac receiving a SCCUL Enterprise Student Award in 2013) told Judge Quinn: ‘I am a teacher and I don’t want to go to prison. I want to be in my classroom today, that’s where I was this morning when I was arrested’
Rosemary Mallon BL, for the board of management, told Judge Michael Quinn that her client had no choice but to ask the court to send Burke to prison for breach of a court order.
Judge Quinn said he was not ruling on the merits of Mr Burke’s arguments regarding his religious belief or his suspension, but merely on the question of whether there had been a wilful breach of a court order.
He was committed to Mountjoy prison in Dublin.
The suspended teacher is one of 10 siblings, all of whom were home-schooled by their evangelical mother, Martina Burke.
The matriarch founded Burke Christian School in Castlebar, which she advertises in local newspapers.
The Burkes are a notable family from Mayo, who have previously campaigned and launched protests against the referendum on abortion, and marriage equality.
Some of the family have also been involved in high profile legal cases, including a high court appeal on religious discrimination.
During the pandemic, the family placed posters in the Castlebar Market Square and protested against Mayo University Hospital.
The evangelical family have also protested against gay marriage, and Castlebar’s Gay Pride parade, the Irish Independent reported.
Four years ago, Mrs Burke called LGBT+ training for school leaders ‘amoral’, arguing that it would ‘stigmatise modesty and inhibitions’.
And last year, four of her children, Ammi, Enoch, Isaac and Kezia Burke lost a legal case against University of Galway which stemmed from their views on gay marriage.
Martina Burke, mother of 10, is a qualified teacher and founded Burke Christian School in Castlebar
Pictured: Kezia Burke, Enoch Burke, Isaac Burke, and Ammi Burke in Dublin in 2021, outside the Four Courts. At the time, the siblings were fighting a religious discrimination case
They had been banned for life from becoming a member of its societies, after distributing flyers against gay marriage.
The siblings claimed that they were facing religious discrimination, however the college said that the ban was not about religion, the Irish Independent reported.
During Ireland’s abortion referendum, the Burkes were regularly protesting outside the constituency office of then Taoiseach, prime minister, Enda Kenny, the paper also reported.