A teacher who refused to use the preferred pronouns of a transgender pupil has been jailed for breaching a ban imposed upon him by his school.
A teacher has been jailed in Ireland for failing to comply with a temporary injunction banning him from the school where he works.
The dispute at the centre of the arrest is reported to involve the teacher, Enoch Burke, refusing to use a transgender pupil’s preferred pronouns, with the teacher reportedly saying that he does not agree with transgenderism.
According to a report by the Irish Independent, the Irish courts have now “committed” the teacher to prison for failing to comply with the court injunction, finding that the suggestion that Burke had broken the injunction was not in dispute.
Speaking to the court, Burke argued that he could not in good conscience comply with the order, arguing that his initial suspension from the school was unlawful, and that obeying the order would constitute a violation of his own religious beliefs.
“I am here today because I would not call a boy a girl,” Burke is reported as telling the court. “It is not something I will do. It is in violation of my conscience.”
“Were I to obey the order of the board of management and the order of the court, I would have to accept that sticking by my belief in male and female is wrong,” he added.
“It is not something I will do,” Burke went on to say. “It is in violation of my conscience.”
The judge presiding over the case, Mr Justice Quinn, said that the only matter he could concern himself with was whether the previous injunction issued by the court had been followed, claiming he could not consider the point raised by Burke.
Justice Quinn committed Burke to Mountjoy Prison in Dublin and ordered that he “remain therein until he purges his contempt or until further order of this court”.
Speaking on the decision after the ruling, however, Burke reportedly said that it would not be possible to “purge” his “contempt”.
“I cannot purge my contempt by holding my Christian beliefs in contempt,” the teacher reportedly said.
He is then noted as hugging his father, Sean, and his brother, Isaac, before being taken away by members of Ireland’s police force, An Garda Síochána.
Burke has since declared that he believes he will never leave prison should this only be possible through the abandonment of his Christian faith.
“I can be a Christian in Mountjoy Prison or I can be a pagan acceptor of transgenderism outside it,” the Irish Independent reports the teacher as declaring.
“I will never leave Mountjoy Prison if in leaving that prison I must violate my well-informed conscience, and my religious beliefs, and deny my God,” he added.
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