Hamish Macdonald Slams Australian Church’s Plans To Ban Gay School Captains

The Project host and out gay broadcast journalist Hamish Macdonald slammed the Presbyterian Church of Australia’s plans to ban gay and sexually active students from leadership roles like that of school captain.

Macdonald studied at The Scots College, an elite private Presbyterian school in Sydney’s eastern suburb Bellevue Hill. 

Macdonald came out in 2019 and publicly confirmed his relationship with partner Jacob Fitzroy, at the GQ Gentlemen’s Ball in Melbourne.

The Presbyterian Church of Australia, which runs around 20 schools and pre-schools across Australia that educate over 13,000 students, submitted before the Australian Law Reform Commission, that they should have the right to exclude students from leadership positions, for being gay or for having premarital sex. 

‘I Went To A Presbyterian School’

Macdonald told his co-hosts that he studied in a Presbyterian school and was in a student leadership role. 

“I was a prefect. I went to a Presbyterian school. There’s clearly the principle of this, which I’m sure people have views on,”  Macdonald said on the show on Friday.

“The thing that strikes me is there’s a practical side to this. Are you seriously going to ask 16 and 17-year-old kids vying to be a school prefect or head prefect ‘Are you gay?’,” asked Macdonald.

The Project host said that LGBTQI students studying in faith-based institutions faced challenges and policies like banning them from leadership roles could be harmful. 

“Let’s assume they’re not going to run around asking these kids to declare themselves in that way as part of a process of selection. You sort of end up with a bit of a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy, which I think we know is pretty harmful,” Macdonald said.

“I think kids growing up in an environment where there is shame or some kind of negativity attached to whoever it is that they are.” 

Gay Student In Religious School

Macdonald spoke about his own struggles with his sexuality as a teenager studying in a religious school. 

“It’s that sense of shame that is quite hard to shake, I think. In my adult life, it’s something that’s taken many years, and I think it stays with you forever,” Macdonald revealed.

‘If you’ve grown up in an environment like that where there’s constantly shame attached to something you can’t change about yourself, it does really take forever to work that out of your system and be able to be okay with who and what you are,” added Macdonald. 

The Church’s submissions came in response to a paper by the ALRC, which had recommended law reforms to remove the power of religious schools to sack teachers and expel students for being LGBTQI. 

The Church argued that if a student looking to be appointed as school captain “were in an active same-sex relationship, they would not be able to give appropriate Christian leadership in a Christian school which requires modelling Christian living. This would also be the case for a student in a sexually active unmarried heterosexual relationship.”

“In both cases, the proposal removes from schools the ability to determine an ethos by selecting appropriate leaders,” the PCA said. 

Students Shouldn’t Have To Fear Coming Out

The Church’s stand was condemned by LGBTQI advocacy organisations and political leaders.

“It’s bullshit we’re seeing this backwards thinking in 2023, Member of the Legislative Council and Victorian Greens education spokesperson Aiv Puglielli said in a statement. 

“Coming out is already hard enough – students shouldn’t have to fear it costing them opportunities as well. The reality is there are queer students in every school, including queer Christians, and they should be offered the same opportunities as every other student.”

“The Presbyterian Church of Australia needs to get out of the Stone Age and stop trying to discriminate against young queer people,” added Puglielli.