School can expel lesbian students, court rules
 

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Reporting from San Francisco -- After a Lutheran school expelled two 16-year-old girls for having "a bond of intimacy" that was "characteristic of a lesbian relationship," the girls sued, contending the school had violated a state anti-discrimination law.

In response to that suit, an appeals court decided this week that the private religious school was not a business and therefore did not have to comply with a state law that prohibits businesses from discriminating. A lawyer for the girls said Tuesday that he would ask the California Supreme Court to overturn the unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal.


The appeals court called its decision "narrow," but lawyers on both sides of the case said it would protect private religious schools across California from such discrimination suits.

In DC, they would have won.

It shouldn't be overturned. It's a religious school. Church and state are supposed to be separate.

They should've been kicked out.

In San Francisco?

It's a dumbass policy, but I think the court's decision is right.

The California 4th District Court of Appeal is in San Diego. The Supreme Court of California sits in San Francisco.

I don't see anything that qualifies it as a dumba** policy.

The school is in Riverside county, which is not close to San Fran.

Its dumb that they are basing it on the fact that the girl's friendship/relationship was "characteristic of a lesbian relationship." But then again this is a private school and they can do dumbass things.

If it is the school I am thinking of, it is a WELS (Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod) school and they are very conservative in comparison to what I practice in the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America). I'm not saying every ELCA member is 100% ok with GLBT people, nor is every WELS member not okay with GLBT people, but it doesn't surprise me at all if it is a WELS school.

For example, women are not pastors in the Wisconsin Synod, you have to be baptized Wisconsin Synod to have communion during their service (my church lets any baptized person partake, and we have agreements with other denominations), and really GeekyPenguin knows a lot more about WELS than I do.

That doesn't mean it's dumb.

You can go ahead and believe it isn't dumb. I do.

I think it's stupid to assume that two girls who have a close relationship are lesbians, whether they are or not. I tell my close friends that I love them, it doesn't mean that I'm a lesbian.

It's obvious that we aren't getting the whole story. I think there is much more to it.

Even so, if the girls were telling people they were lesbians, and that goes against the school's policy, I say good riddance. It's no different from students in public schools being expelled for doing something against school policy.

...which is dumb.

Actually it's NOT dumb to expect students not to conduct themselves in a manner inconsistent with or in violation of school policy.

I fully expect students to rebel against dumb policies.

It's a CHURCH school. It should have been pretty clear before they enrolled that the church did not approve of homosexuality. Protest dumb restrictions all you want, but if you should have known the policy before you got into the school it shouldn't come as a real big surprise when they enforce it. The school has the choice to not accept gay students and gay students have the choice of not going to the school if it's important to them.

Agreed.

Too many variables...

They might not have known/accepted their sexuality when they enrolled in the school.

They might have not actually had a choice if they weren't the ones paying for it.

I'm also not arguing whether the courts made the correct decision based on the law, just that the rule is dumb in the first place.

That's true. There's also the possible scenario of their parents didn't approve of it and sent them to church school to try to "get them right". Whatever happened it's certainly not a happy scenario, but I don't think the parents/students should have filed a lawsuit over it because it certainly seems to have been within the church's rights to kick them out.

I'm thinking that the girls and/or their parents knew/suspected that they were lesbians (or showing lesbian tendencies) and enrolled them in a religious school to try to "turn them" straight.

https://www.changingworld.com/catalog/images/ZA-SO5.jpg

PS This is an excellent and very thought-provoking documentary: "For the Bible Tells Me So":
http://www.forthebibletellsmeso.org

Whether they accepted or knew their sexuality or not, they were aware of the school policy. All they had to do was comply with it. End of story.


You should never encourage students to rebel against a "dumb" rule. First, "dumb" is subjective. Second, most students hate at least one of the school rules. So where does that leave the school?
Simply put...attitudes like yours are why schools are in such disarray now. Students think that if THEY don't like a rule, then they should just be able to ignore it. It doesn't work like that.

And attitudes like yours kept black people at the back of the bus.

This isn't even close to being the same thing.

My H.S. would kick a student out for the same reason or if a female student had an abortion or if a male student encouraged a female student to have an abortion or for a lot of other reasons which I consider to be absolutely ridiculous.

That said, I went to a Catholic school which can choose to serve whoever it felt like serving.

FWIW, if the school in this story was a public school, I'd be right there with you on the righteous indignation thing. Here, I think free exercise of religion trumps free exercise of sexuality (because one of 'em has to give).

Didn't say it was the same thing.

Religious traditions are not immutable and neither is the law. Each have processes by which they can be changed, and of course, each can also be changed by external pressures.

I am in favor of using both internal hierarchy and external pressure to change dumb rules, including in the church.

And for what it's worth, when I say "that kind of attitude" I mean the attitude that breaking rules doesn't create change. I know I don't have to cite examples, because most of you are smart cookies.

That depends on what the rule is.

I watched that Raven Samone movie about the segregated proms, in what I believe was the the 20th century. If every student and parent had said "this is a rule...it isn't safe for blacks and whites to be at a prom together because, unlike when they are at SCHOOL TOGETHER, they may have sex and fight and stuff."

With this lesbian girls, there are two issues, the legal issue and the moral issue. The moral point may be made even if the legal one was lost.

Violating this rule isn't like a sit in at a lunch counter. There, you're really not violating anyone's right to do anything. Here, if you were to force religious schools to take kids who they thought were doing something immoral enough that they didn't, for their own unenlightened reasons, want around the other kids, you're infringing upon someone else's right to practice their religion.

You might value expression of sexuality above expression of religion. I don't. Lots of folks don't. Apparently, the court didn't.

Ok, Kevin.

It wasn't so much about expression of sexuality as it was uncertainty over their sexual orientation and perceived homosexuality. The court's ruling makes sense but that doesn't negate the fact that religious practices are challenged all the time.

Some of these religious denominations pretended that the Bible declared racism, lynching, and segregation as God's Will. Some also said that a man beating his wife was justified under God's Will and could show you a Scripture.

For those that no longer teach that, the change happened somehow and with prompting from somewhere.

You don't always have to break rules to effect change.

And again, in YOUR mind the rule is "dumb." I don't find such a rule "dumb" for a religious school because most religious institutions do not condone homosexuality.

So what is your point? No one said anything about NOT working on getting the rules changed. I simply said that people shouldn't encourage students to break rules as a way of bringing about that change.

DUH. That I disagree with your post because it depends on the rule and what are perceived to be necessary steps towards change. DUH.

Duh? Are you kidding? :rolleyes:
As I said before...what is your point? Any responsible, mature human being knows that to go around advocating for breaking the rules as a mechanism of change is going to open the door for chaos. It's more important to have dialogue about the issues and break down barriers that way. Breaking the rules only gives "them" the ammunition they need against you and in many cases weakens the effectiveness of what you are attempting to do. Your attempt to show that you disagree with my post would probably have been more effective if you had used a better example.

Yes. DUH.

So instead of asking "what's your point" you could've found a less smartassy way of asking for clarity. Since we're talking about what mature human beings do. ;)

You're smart enough to grasp my point that there are certain contexts where rule breaking is deemed necessary. I simply used a silly example of Raven Symone's bad acting to convey the point. You can disagree with the point as I disagree with your point. But you're smart enough to grasp it. I assume. Maybe.

Blaming those practices on religious teachings alone is a bit simplistic, don't you think? Religious practice versus cultural practice gets is something of a chicken vs. egg argument. Some folks like to be able to justify their behavior with scripture.

In a sense, I think you're trying to compare 'those' religions with the teachings of the Lutheran Church. Or specifically, one particular teaching -- that homosexuality is a sin. That particular teaching has been black-letter law as far as religion has been concerned since even prior to the formation of the Lutheran Church (the school here is Lutheran). I'm not so certain that lynching, segregation, racism, etc. were ever so codified and clear in the religious teaching of that particular church or its predecessor.

What we have here is not some cultural norm being unconvincingly propped up by some shaky scripture verse. This is a religious norm which has been with us forever. Big 'ol difference, doncha think?

ETA: I'm not arguing for the correctness of this particular religious norm, but it's hard to deny it exists. In my church's case, I doubt the Pope or any of his successors will be changing this anytime soon. I do admit that theoretically, it is changeable, but the sort of change you're asking for would have to be something far more substantial than even Vatican II and at least in my mortal estimation, that ain't happening.

I'm not blaming them on religious teachings. The people who said they come from religious teachings did.

Wherever they come from, they become ingrained in ideologies and practices. It can take a degree of rule breaking to overcome these practices. Holding a press conference doesn't always work.

That school will need to kick out the kids who eat shrimp & lobster, as well as the kids who wear cotton/polyester blended clothing.

I sent this to one of my (gay) work colleagues for Gay Pride Week and he appreciated it:
http://mail2.someecards.com/filestorage/gay_7.jpg

rut roh :p

As I posted previously, there are many different Synods for Lutherans, so please don't lump us all together. I don't want people to get the wrong idea, my flavor of Lutherans are much less likely (though not completely) to have issues with homosexuality.

"What's your point?" IS asking for clarity. :rolleyes:

And you got it.

ETA: This isn't the first time that you've seemed to be attempting snark with me on this board. But I just re-read my initial post to you and see that I didn't finish my sentence for some reason. Hmmmm...perhaps I was multi-tasking.