A California Appeals Court ruled that California Lutheran High School, had the right to expel two students over violation of the school’s Christian Conduct rule.
The Fourth District Court of Appeals ruled this week that a private religious school may legally incorporate religion as a criterion in making decisions regarding admission and discipline. The students, known as Jane Doe and Jane Roe, were, according the school, displaying "a bond of intimacy characteristic of a lesbian relationship.”
In 2005, a schoolmate of the two girls reported the alleged lesbian relationship after both of the girls said that they loved each other. They were suspended by the school’s pastor and later expelled by school directors in accordance to the school’s Christian Conduct policy, which denies admittance to homosexual students.
The policy also states that a student can be expelled for participating in immoral/scandalous behavior, including homosexuality, regardless of if the act is conducted on school grounds. The attorney for California Lutheran, John McKay said that the girls were expelled because they, “conducing themselves in a manner consistent with being lesbians."
The ruling in the case relied on a 1998 decision by the California Supreme Court, which permitted The Boy Scouts of America to exclude homosexuals and atheists because it was a social organization, and did not have to obey with anti-discrimination laws. Likewise, private religious schools do not have to comply with legislation, as observed in 2004, when a 14-year-old girl was expelled from a Christian school in California because her parents were lesbians.
"The school's religious message is inextricably intertwined with its secular functions," Justice Betty A. Richli wrote in legal court documents. "The whole purpose of sending one's child to a religious school is to ensure that he or she learns even secular subjects within a religious framework."
Kirk Hanson, the lawyer for the girls, who are now in college, plans to appeal the case to the California Supreme Court. "They're giving private religious schools carte blanche to discriminate on any basis," Hanson said. Read source articles here and here.