Symbols Of Unity

Rainbows too politically charged for Catholic schools?

Most people could probably get behind school bans on certain symbols like the swastika or the Confederate flag. But the rainbow?

Some Catholic schools in Ontario are deterring the use of rainbows because they are considered too politically charged, according to The Toronto Star .

The Dufferin-Peel Catholic board told The Star that the rainbow flag, regarded as a symbol of unity in support of gay pride, wasn’t banned outright, but that the use of a different logo was preferred during a recent anti-homophobia event at St. Joseph’s Catholic Secondary School in Mississauga.

Board spokesman Bruce Campbell said the alternative logo had been designed in the school, “and the staff adviser indicated to use the in-house design rather than the rainbow flag.”

(The Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association, meanwhile, told The Star it hadn’t heard of any restrictions on rainbows and that the boards did not have any issues with them.)

A student at the school, however, told the gay and lesbian newspaper Xtra! students were prevented from displaying rainbows.

“We brought signs and posters with rainbows, and we were told that we can’t put them up,” Leanne Iskander, 16, who started St. Joseph’s unofficial gay-straight alliance, told Xtra.

The students hid their message inside rainbow cupcakes instead, Xtra said.

Casey Oraa, chair of the advocacy network Queer Ontario, told Xtra the rejection of the rainbow symbol reflected the Catholic school board’s treatment of gays and lesbians, noting: “Nothing the schools do surprises me any more.”

Student gay-straight alliances have struggled for recognition within Catholic schools. In January, the Halton Catholic board came under fire when its chair defended a decision to ban such clubs.

Separately, Toronto comedian Dawn Whitwell told Globe reporter Kate Hammer that she was barred from performing this week at Bishop Marrocco-Thomas Merton Catholic Secondary School because board officials did not approve of her marriage to another woman.

A symbol of unity forged in strife - Your Life - SunHerald.com

While the nation was splintering and rushing into a Civil War, the U.S. Capitol building became a symbol of hope and reunification. Despite the Civil War, construction continued on a new dome to rise over Washington D.C., and the nation. Construction of this dome was, at times, fraught with the same infighting and peril as the Civil War.

Plans were made in 1854 to replace the existing copper dome, which had been placed on the Capitol building in 1824. That dome was almost universally disliked from its inception.

Architect Thomas Walter, who had also handled the extension of the Capitol, presented a plan to use cast iron, a fireproof material that would allow the dome to be built higher at a lower cost.

In 1855, President Franklin Pierce approved the $100,000 appropriation to begin construction of the new dome. Secretary of War and former Mississippi Sen. Jefferson Davis was put in charge of overseeing the construction of the dome. The old dome was removed in 1856 and its wood used as fuel for a steam engine in the new construction.

Davis placed Capt. Montgomery Meigs of the Army Corps of Engineers to supervise Walter’s plans and construction. Meigs, who would later bury Union dead at Robert E. Lee’s home Arlington, attempted to take credit for Walter’s work, going so far as to forge his name on the architect’s plans.

A statue representing Freedom Triumphant in War and Peace was to be placed at the apex of the new Capitol dome. This statue caused some controversy as Davis originally disagreed with the proposed statue by Thomas Crawford.

Crawford’s statue wore a “liberty cap” which was the Roman symbol of the emancipated slave. Davis objected to the cap saying it was inappropriate to “a people who were born free and would not be enslaved.” The cap was eventually replaced with a military helmet topped by an American eagle head and crest of feathers.

By 1857, Davis returned to the U.S. Senate, representing his adopted state of Mississippi. By 1861, Davis had resigned his seat in the senate and was selected by the Confederate Congress to serve a six-year term as president of the Confederate States of America.

With the country tearing apart over the issue of slavery and rushing to Civil War, some wanted work on the Capitol dome to stop. If the cast iron, which was sitting on the grounds, wasn’t used, it would rust.

President Abraham Lincoln saw completing the dome as a symbol for reunifying the nation. Work continued on the dome while soldiers from North and South killed each other on battlefields such as Manassas, Shiloh, Antietam and Chancellorsville.

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