Saying transgenderism is “against” his Christian beliefs, an Irish school teacher has been suspended from work and jailed for contempt of court.
Quoting news site RTE.ie, the New York Post reported that Enoch Burke, who teaches history, politics and German at Wilson’s Hospital School in Multyfarnham in Westmeath County, was first suspended with pay after he refused to call a transgender student “they” instead of “him.”
He was then arrested Monday for violating a court order barring him from teaching or being present at the school until the results of a disciplinary hearing.
“I love my school, with its motto Res Non Verba, ‘Actions not words,’ but I am here today because I said I would not call a boy a girl,” Burke told the court.
Judge Michael Quinn found Burke guilty of violating a court order and sent him to Mountjoy Prison for the time being.
The teacher told the judge that “it is insanity” that he would sent to prison for refusing to give up his Christian beliefs.
Despite being banned from school, Burke sat in an empty classroom at the school on Friday and was taken into custody when he appeared again at the school on Monday.
Quinn later went to court where he told the judge he couldn’t comply with the court order because it violates his conscience.
“I am a teacher and I don’t want to go to prison,” Burke told the court. “I want to be in my classroom today, that’s where I was this morning when I was arrested.”
