An Irish teacher who refused to call a transitioning student by the proper pronoun is now in jail.
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The teacher, Enoch Burke, was arrested after being banned from the campus of Wilson Hospital School in Westmeath, Ireland. He was arrested for returning to the grounds.
Burke teaches German, history and politics. He cited his Christian faith as the reason for not referring to the student by a pronoun other than the student’s birth gender. He was sent to Mountjoy prison for contempt of court.
Enoch Burke Arrested
“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,” Burke stated. This after a judge ruled he would be taken to jail, per Newsweek.
Burke was discovered on school grounds despite being placed on administrative leave back in June. This after he disputed a trans student’s request to use “they/them” as a preferred pronoun.
He again refused when the school demanded he use the proper pronoun. Saying being forced to call any student a pronoun other than the one he used naturally was an infringement of his constitutional rights.
“Following the event, Burke was placed on administrative leave in late August while a disciplinary process was conducted by the school,” Newsweek reported. “But Burke continued to attend the school’s premises, according to the school. In court on Monday, he said he could not comply with the order and intended to return to school.”
This isn’t the first time a teacher gets in trouble after refusing to call a student by their preferred gender role. According to the Washington Post, more than 160 teachers in the US had lost their jobs due to situations like this.