A former Canadian school board trustee — an outspoken Christian — is facing nearly $1 million in fines for expressing on social media his belief that there are only two sexes, male and female.
In mid-February, the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal ordered former Chilliwack Board of Education trustee Barry Neufeld to pay $750,000 for allegedly discriminating against LGBT-identified teachers and staff members in the Chilliwack School District.
The tribunal decided the massive fine will be used to compensate LGBT-identified employees who have sustained “injury to their dignity, feelings, and self-respect” because of Neufeld’s remarks.
With the number of LGBT-identified people on staff from 2017 to 2022 ranging from 45 to 163, the tribunal is expecting each impacted employee to receive somewhere between $4,601.23 and $16,666.67 from the fine levied against Neufeld.
The former trustee, who is now appealing the tribunal’s ruling, has also been ordered to pay $442 to an unnamed plaintiff identified as “Teacher C” to compensate the former teacher’s lost wages for attending a hearing about Neufeld’s personal views.
All of this began back in October 2017, when Neufeld posted on his personal Facebook page that the district’s Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) program was rooted not in biology but was “a social construct.”
“At the risk of being labelled a bigoted homophobe, I have to say that I support traditional family values and I agree with the [American] College of Pediatricians that allowing little children choose to change gender is nothing short of child abuse,” he wrote. “But now the [British Columbia] Ministry of Education has embraced the LGBTQ lobby and is forcing this biologically absurd theory on children in our schools. Children are being taught that heterosexual marriage is no longer the norm. Teachers must not refer to ‘boys and girls’ they are merely students.”
In additional social media posts, Neufeld wrote about the tension between being compassionate while not compromising on his convictional belief that there are only two sexes, as defined in Genesis 1:27, where it’s written, “So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (NLT).
Neufeld explained he felt called to “[t]o motivate lukewarm Christians who are sitting idly by as all of Society ‘slouches towards Gomorrah,'” adding the promotion of transgender ideology has “demonized people of faith who believe that God created humans male and female: In the Image of God.”
The Rights and Freedoms Fundraising Society is raising money for Neufeld’s legal appeal.
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