students expelled for sexual orientation

Yep, that's the word, from an article in today's SF Chronicle.

Two students who were presumed to be lesbians were expelled from California Lutheran High School for their presumed sexual orientation. They were interviewed by the school's directors, suspended based on their answers, and then expelled a month later.

According to Justice Betty Richli, "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."

Way to go, Fourth District Court of Appeal in San Bernardino. If Proposition 8 got you riled up, then this story should send you through the roof. According to Justice Richli, secular education is anti-gay. As if we needed more evidence that religious organizations are in the Dark Ages where issues of civil rights are concerned.

For the past month I've been going to Glide Memorial Church, where gays and lesbians worship alongside their straight counterparts. For the past five years my dad has been the pastor of a GLBTQ church in Palm Springs. It seems odd that there should be so few places where gays and lesbians can worship freely---and out. It's past time for churches to embrace gays and lesbians as equals and get over the toxic rhetoric and belief systems that this ever-visible segment of the population is somehow less-than or damned to hell. The Catholic and Mormon churches already made a huge mess in California, funneling money and energy that could have been so much better used into a campaign that strips loving partners from basic civil rights. Now this Lutheran high school is stepping up to condemn its gay students. As if navigating your sexuality in high school isn't hard enough.

When is it going to stop?

---Brooke