A Perth father has revealed that his daughter’s private school told him that she would not have been welcome to enroll if they knew that he was gay.
Foundation Christian College, located in the suburbs of Perth, reportedly discriminated against the father, telling him that his daughter was banned from speaking about her home life or she would risk expulsion.
The father, who has asked for his name to be withheld to protect his daughter’s identity, spoke to The Mandurah Mail, where he revealed that the school targeted him and his daughter on the basis of his sexuality.
After his daughter was overheard talking about her father and his partner, the school called an emergency meeting with the man, explaining to him that the young girl would have never been welcome at the school if he had been open with his sexuality.
“[My daughter] got talking about Tony Abbott and gay marriage and mentioned that her dad is with [my partner] and she was shut down by her teacher and then the teacher had to explain to the class what ‘gay’ is,” the father told The Mandurah Mail.
“We were asked to go into a meeting that we thought would be about her education and how she was going in class to be told that [my daughter] had mentioned I’m gay,” he said.
“I was told that they don’t promote ‘gay’ at the school and [my daughter] was unable to talk about my life between [my partner] and me and general stuff about what a kid talks about with her parents.”
“She could mention my name, but she couldn’t talk about us being gay or relating to us as a couple, so pretty much to a seven-year-old, we were forced to say to [my daughter] that she wasn’t allowed to talk about Daddy or [my partner] at all,” said the Perth man.
“He said to me that ‘if we knew you were gay at the interview you would never have got in this school’.”
The father, who embraced his sexuality after divorcing his ex-wife, with whom he shares his daughter with, said that he was accused of ‘lying’ about being gay to get his daughter into the school.
“He said to me that he felt they were fooled at the interview,” he said.
Discussing the interview, the father questioned what the school planned to do when same-sex marriage became legalised across Australia.
“I said to him, ‘What are you going to do when marriage equality is passed in Australia?’; he said that the board would get together and discuss the application process and it would be somewhere on there that gays aren’t welcome,” he said.
Instead of submitting to the school’s absurd requests, the father chose to withdraw his daughter.
The little girl, who had close friends at the school, was heartbroken.
“Originally she was really upset; she still gets upset and she sees me get upset so it totally confuses her,” he said.
“She doesn’t like it that they don’t like her dad.”
“Why does my daughter have to go through this and lose her best friends due to the person I am?”
“I carry a lot of guilt and I hate that my daughter has to deal with her dad not being accepted.”
Foundation Christian College reportedly receives millions in taxpayer funds, and has not responded to the allegations.
