An appeals court in California ruled this week in favor of a Christian school in an anti-discrimination case.
In September 2005, California Lutheran High School in Wildomar expelled two girls after they admitted to the school principal that they had told other students they were lesbians, and that they had engaged in lesbian conduct with each other -- in direct violation of the school's code of conduct. The girls' parents then filed a lawsuit, claiming discrimination against their daughters.
Christian Legal Society attorney Tim Tracey is handling the case.
"The question before the court was whether or not private religious schools were subject to state anti-discrimination laws," he explains. "[Essentially] does it violate those laws for a private religious school to say we want our students to abide by our beliefs and to live according to rules of conduct that are consistent with those Christian beliefs?"
A lower court and now the 4th District Court of Appeal in Riverside have ruled in favor of the school. It remains unclear whether this latest ruling will be appealed to the California Supreme Court, a body that has ruled in favor of special rights for homosexuals the past several years. That concerns Tracey.
"When the question before it is gay rights versus religious freedom, the California Supreme Court said 'we go with gay rights,'" says Tracey. "And this is obviously a case that I can see the California Supreme Court being very eager to take and to rule on."
The case is Doe v. California Lutheran High School Association.
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible
15 comments:
I would hope that the High Court will support the school's stand. My kids attended a Christian school as well. Private schools do not take government funding and they are permitted to establish a code of conduct in keeping with the faith of the school.
But there are always those who say they don't care who something belongs to or what it was created for or what the rules of use are. They want things to serve them in their own special interests and everyone else - ? Well too bad for anybody but them.
You follow the rules you agree to follow. If you don't like the rules, build your OWN school and set up your own rules.
In other news, upon hearing this troubling lesbo news, Ann Coulter's head splits open in an orgasmic display of role and identity confusion. Erik Erikson weeps.
I'll bet she is NOT lesbian.
I wonder if she's a Daddy's Girl.
I've heard that achieving women who break the glass ceiling are often Daddy's girls. It was a news feature some years back --either in Blade or Newsweek. They interviewed women who were high in corporate ranks or successful in their own businesses --Mrs. Fields cookie lady was one featured.
they are more assertive and confident than the average, when affirmed and adored by fathers.
So, Steve,you think the schools should have to admit sexually active kids who announce they are in homosexual activities --contrary to the beliefs of the institution?
I agree with kateb, so long as the school doesn't receive state/federal money. That would preclude them from discriminating based on sexual preference or sexual activity... Otherwise, parents send their kids to that school and they decide how the tuition money is spent. And if that means that they discriminate based on Biblical principles, so be it!
Steve, the word 'lesbo' is very disrespectful to lesbians.
While you may have a hard time with the lifestyle choices other people make, calling them disrespectful names and using shaming tactics are not acceptable behaviors.
Only the great entitled class thinks they should shame other people into conforming into what the 'entitled' has decided they should be.
We all have to make decisions about our own conduct. And we all have to accept the responsibility for those choices, but to be heckled from the sidelines isn't really helping, now is it?
^ don't know, don't care.
Barb,
I would submit to you that any known sexually active student in a Christian school (unless married) should be banned from the school regardless of sexual orientation.
Fornication is just as wrong as homosexuality.
Yes, Jeanette --I asked if sexually active kids should be permitted in the schools --meaning, as well as those who announce lesbian activity. FACT is that heterosexually active kids aren't as likely to tell on each other if they announce their activities to their peers. And when boys do it, it may be just bragging --again, sinful, but kids aren't typically expelled for all sins --but cheating, lying, stealing would result in discipline. As would violating rules or the law on smoking, drinking and drug use.
Pregnancy would probably mean expulsion or home school with or without tutoring and if so, should be for both girl and boy if they are in the school. Wrong to send the girl home while letting the guy play football.
But I'm not sure they should expel pregnant students in light of Christ's teaching to the adulterous woman --(adultery involves betrayal of the marital vows and seems worse to me than getting the cart before the horse) and there is also the fact that we don't believe in abortion but in affirming life, even out of wedlock births.
It's tricky --trying to teach kids not to sin, trying to deter the sin choice with consequences announced beforehand. And yet not inclining Christian school girls to get rid of their embarrassing pregnancies by abortion. And not seeing to be unforgiving.
Institutions don't want to seem to celebrate or condone sinning--or provide a positive plaform for it -while yet saying, "Now, go and sin no more." and "Your sins are forgiven."
My understanding is that in the inner city, getting pregnant as an unwed teen and being "yo baby's daddy" can become trendy, badges of honor. Christian schools don't want that.
One fellow on another blog said it was embarrassing how many pregnant girls were in the halls of his Chrsitian school as they WERE allowed to stay in his school.
Depends, too, on whether the school sees itself primarily as a mission school or a school for Christian families wanting similarly raised and protected peers.
As for the "lesbos" --I think Steve supports gay rights, Kateb. but I agree --name-calling and ridicule are not the Christian way. However, I think societal disapproval does result in disrespectful labels and using the term "gay" as an insult as in , "O that's so GAY!" --which expression is now being disapproved by the Ad Council on TV because of the obvious slam against gayness. But this is a societal tendency (not Christian) against people who are irregular/abnormal/different in any way. As I've always said, it's not the Christians who tortured and killed Matt Shepherd --it was the typical bar mentality that ridicules people for differences --or for no reason at all when they are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, as his killers were said to be?
As for the lesbians, they were announcing activity clearly prohibited by God's Word and school rules and probably were not remorseful. Out they go and rightly so.
But I fear the day is coming when Christian institutions will be asked to treat homosexual identification and conduct as race or disability --with equal rights, even to membership and jobs in Christian institutions. AS in England, where the law wants Christian retirement homes to admit gay couples and Christian adoption agencies to let gays adopt.
That's the very dilemma that split the Episcopalian church. That gays demanded the right to be ordained.
And that was the same thing. It isn't proper to come into an existing organization and demand that the while thing be changed to meet your special interest.
This is America. If you don't the rules go out and do it your way!
Is it just me or can anybody else here the trolls having a meeting?
:-)
(I can just hear the dialogue. "They can't have their own schools and - hack, gag - practice their own faith???"
They can't have a private business and set up their own terms of use? What can we do to do away with this problem? Quick! Someone bring me Adolf Hitler's game book!
What if Christianity’s critics got serious?
by Phil Cooke
I’m not one to jump on the “Christianity is under attack” bandwagon. However, there’s no question that Christianity is the target of far more legal action in this country that any other religion and people are far more sensitive to mentioning “Jesus” than Buddha, Mohammed, or other religious figures. (Which is a significant reason in my thinking that there’s actually something to this Christianity business). But in looking through the media recently and noticing that the voices against Christianity seem to be growing – and getting more hostile - I spent part of the holidays wondering what would happen if the pendulum swung just enough to shift the majority’s thinking? What if the majority decided that Christians are the problem in this country and we need to do something about it?
And it’s not just my wild imagination. A poll by the Anti-Defamation League at the end of last year indicates 64 percent of Americans say religion in America is under attack.
"This has become more than a seasonal witch hunt by the ACLU," said World Net Daily Editor and founder Joseph Farah. "The attacks on Christianity in America are alarming. We are witnessing more than religious bigotry now. We are entering the early stages of what could become persecution and outright criminalization of Christianity if it is not exposed and fought vigorously by all freedom-loving people."
Farah’s word “criminalization” is interesting. I spoke at a conference a few years back and met the leader of one of the country’s largest Christian ministries to the gay community. He mentioned even then his organization was already preparing for a time in the near future when offering a gay or transgender person an alternative to that lifestyle will actually be illegal. Just offering it – will be illegal. Far fetched? In Madison, Wisconsin, David Ott, a former homosexual, was arrested for a "hate crime" for sharing his testimony with a gay man at a gas station. He faced a $10,000 fine and one year behind bars. Seven thousand dollars in legal fees later, [he] was ordered to attend re-education classes at the University of Wisconsin. Regardless of what you believe about homosexuality, it appears that even discussion about it may be illegal soon.
The thought police are indeed out there.
While to a person of faith, many of the critics seem – well, insane – I have to admit, their rants do get picked up by the mainstream media. And to the uneducated, or those with no religious experience or knowledge of religion in America, the comments seem to make sense. Here’ a few choice quotes.
From blowhard scientist Richard Dawkins: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction. Jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic-cleanser; a misogynistic homophobic racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal….
Columnist Maureen Dowd: “Oh my God, we really are in a theocracy.”
Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials): "The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake."
Comedian Bill Maher: ”Christians and others who are religious suffer from a neurological disorder that "stops people from thinking."
Bestselling author Sam Harris: “A person who believes that Elvis is still alive is very unlikely to get promoted to a position of great power and responsibility in our society. Neither will a person who believes that the holocaust was a hoax. But people who believe equally irrational things about God and the bible are now running our country. This is genuinely terrifying.”
It’s not just the criticism, but the attitude that it’s becoming more and more “OK” to trash Christians, and to offer more offensive and sometimes violent options for dealing with these perceived “Christian extremists.”
From a more direct perspective, Tom DeLay had this to say: "We are, after all, a society that abides abortion on demand, has killed millions of innocent children, degrades the institution of marriage and often treats Christianity like some second-rate superstition. Seen from this perspective of course there is a war on Christianity."
By the way – I particularly love those who are terrified by the vague but impending “theocracy” that seems to be taking over the country. But the truth is, if you’ve ever tried to organize anyone at church you know just how nuts the idea is that Christians are taking over America. Couple that with the incredible erosion of religious morals and values in this country and it does seem far-fetched. And yet bookstores are filled with recent books on the terrifying future of the theocracy that’s somehow taking over America.
The bottom line is that hostile statements are becoming far more regular and they’re coming from the mouths of people who are respected. Worse, because of the typical journalist’s ignorance of Christianity, these fringe and extreme statements are not being challenged by the press. When a popular writer like Sam Harris calls atheism “a moral and intellectual necessity,” someone needs to challenge that incredibly shallow idea.
So what do you think? Is this a time for serious reflection regarding the perception of Christianity in America? When I was young, those indifferent to Christianity pretty much left us alone. But now, not only do they speak out, but feel they can level volleys at us that they would never do against other religions. Christians are the last group that those in the mainstream media can criticize without fear of retaliation or retribution.
Is it too great a stretch to wonder if there will come a time in our country similar to pre-war Germany? After years of refusing to speak up to defend the Jews, it was a simple thing for the Nazis to take the next step toward extermination.
Could it happen here?
Steve, thanks for posting this. Do you know who Phil Cooke is; I do not.
I think his article is right on. Nothing I have not noticed and wondered about --considering the vitriol I have encountered which I don't think is just because of ME --since I've seen so many vitriolic articles over at MR's and some other places on fundamentalists/evangelicals in general. Where did you find it?
I am going to post something from the London Times soon --by a writer praising Christian missionary work in Africa and the difference that being Christian makes in the African mindset --written by an atheist.
I keep saying that Christianity is the foundation of those american values which are commendable. Even the desire to be tolerant and let pregnant women and homosexuals have their way is because of our culturally Christian ideas of free will and compassion --but that compassion ought not make us lose sense of right and wrong --such that we cause more wrong than right in our nation and forget, in our mis-applied compassion, to say, "Now go and sin no more."
BTW, I know, "sin" is a religious concept that the gov't doesn't have to consider.
But the Gov't DOES rule on right and wrong, fair and unfair, etc. does it all the time.
And they need to see eventually, through the will and conscience of the majority, that both gay marriage and abortion are simply "wrong" and therefore, should be unlawful. Yes there are wrongs the law does not address, but the ones that affect others and our nation adversely need to be outlawed. Gay marriage is a pandora's box and a slippery slope and we need children. No one is forcing most women to get pregnant in the first place --and no one is saying that private consensual homosexual activity should be criminalized,
but gay marriage has grave implications for children --just as divorce does. God provided divorce for the hardness of our hearts, Jesus said, but He forbade homosexual conduct. We have no business redefining this ancient institution of a mother and father as the foundation of family --to give equal status under the law to perversion.
What an interesting article. I really enjoyed reading it.
I also take a publication each month called the VOM, or the Voice of the Martyrs.
It chronicles true persecution of Christians. In places like Iran, North Korea, Pakistan - so I don't think we have it too rough here. Yet.
We're just dealing with disapproval and Jesus said that we'd meet with at least that if we would follow Him. :-)
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