(LifeSiteNews) — For the second year in a row, Canadians across the country kept their children home from school this week to protest the celebration of LGBT “pride” month in schools.
Earlier this week, public schools celebrating “pride” month experienced student absences as many Canadian families kept their children out of school from May 31 to June 4, instead participating in pray-ins at Catholic school boards and bishops’ offices, according to the movement’s organizer, Campaign Life Coalition.
“The parental rights battle is one that will require persistence and long-term commitment until the scourge of gay supremacy and indoctrination has been removed from our schools and children’s classrooms,” CLC’s Jack Fonseca told LifeSiteNews.
“This event has been an important piece of that ongoing pressure to send a message to woke, pro-LGBT teachers, principals, trustees and Ministry of Education officials,” he continued.
The protest was well-publicized and supported by various parental rights groups and parent advocacy networks, including Parent’s Rights Coalition of Canada, Hands Off Our Kids, and Kamil El-Sheikh, the organizer of last September’s MillionPersonMarch4Children.
While the exact number of students who stayed home is still unknown, Fonseca estimated that “the school absences were very significant, like they were last year.”
He predicted that more specific numbers would be available in the coming weeks if mainstream media picks up the story and interrogates superintendents and teachers’ unions, as happened last year.
“I can also share with you that we know for sure that families in at least eight provinces have participated in this second annual National ‘Pride’ Flag Walk-Out Day campaign,” he stated.
The provinces include British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
Fonseca also revealed that supporters in Ottawa and Burlington told CLC that “they recruited at least 10 other families from their school to join the Pride Flag Walk-Out.”
“Another supporter in Ottawa told us they recruited approximately 20 families in their school to keep their children home in protest of the transgender and homosexual Pride flag,” he said.
In addition to the school walkouts, CLC organized pray-ins at some Catholic school boards and Catholic bishops’ offices.
“The purpose of these was to ask our Catholic education leaders – both Trustees and Bishops – to stop the scandal of allowing the sinful symbol of homosexual and transgender lifestyles to be flown on Catholic school properties,” he explained.
The pray-ins were held at offices in Toronto, Ottawa, Burlington, Hamilton and Niagara Falls.
“In Ottawa, we had 60 people praying outside the Catholic school board office,” Fonseca stated. “At the TCDSB [Toronto Catholic District School Board] about two dozen Catholics held signs like, ‘Yes to Jesus, No to Pride’ asking trustees to stop promoting anti-Catholic sexual ideology, and at the Hamilton Diocese office of Bishop Douglas Crosby, we had about two dozen Catholics praying for God to help the bishop fulfill his obligation of spiritual leadership, which has been sorely lacking.”
“In Elmvale, Ontario we even had one lady organize a pray-in event in her small town, despite their being no bishop’s or school board office!” he celebrated.
Last year, the walkout was a massive success with thousands of students staying home on June 1 when their schools flew the “pride” flag.
Furthermore, the walkout seemed to spark a resistance against the LGBT agenda which remained strong until the end of the school year.
In June 2023, following the walk-out protest, video footage from a pro-family protest in Ottawa went viral showing young Muslim boys stomping on “pride” flags.
The same month, students at Sir Frederick Banting High School in London, Ontario, cheered as a male student tore the “pride” flag from the school’s flagpole.