Wildomar School Incident

In this case, two students and their parents last month sued the California Lutheran High School Association, which oversees the operation of the high school in Wildomar, for expelling the two girls for allegedly being lesbians.

With teenage students announcing their homosexuality at younger and younger ages, according to studies, the timing appears to be ripe for a ruling over whether religious freedoms trump the right not to be discriminated against at private Christian schools.

Gay-rights activist Marc Adams said he and his group, Seattle-based HeartStrong, have counseled nearly 1,000 students from across the nation over the last decade who have been kicked out of religious schools for being homosexual. It’s sure to become a more heated debate and controversial issue in the coming years, he said.

”Students who directly come to us are students in some sort of crisis,” Adams said. “They’ve been expelled or outed to their families. There are so many more that need to get our message. There are thousands of students we never reach.”

But, he said he doubts the courts would rule in favor of complainants in the Wildomar case.

”Unless they are suing for a refund in tuition, the suits get tossed out after a while,” Adams said about cases similar to the Wildomar one filed in the past in other states. “Everything has to filter through freedom of religion. That’s how these schools get to do what they do.”

In one highly watched case that is before the Florida Supreme Court, a student who attended a private Christian school was expelled after administrators learned he was homosexual. He and his mother sued the school, but the lower courts have tossed out the suit.

(HEARTSTRONG NOTE: The above mentioned mom is Carol Gload, recipient of the HeartStrong Leave a Light award. We are very proud of her and her son. You can read more about Carol here.)

”Courts have been very deferential to religious schools,” said Jon Davidson, legal director of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a national organization that works to protect the civil rights of homosexuals.

“Students at private institutions have the same protections as students at public schools in California,” he said. “But that law has an exception to it. It says this section does not apply to a private secondary school controlled by a religious organization.”

The Wildomar school is owned and operated by an association of Lutheran congregations in California that are part of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.

Davidson said there haven’t been many cases similar to the Wildomar one, largely because at this time, the education code seems to suggest that if religious schools are acting within their tenets, they are not violating civil rights laws or the state constitution. ”By in large in this country, the government doesn’t get involved in regulating religious practices.”

According to Matt Davis, a staff attorney with the Florida-based Christian Law Association, it’s a matter of Christian schools having the right and ability to have moral standards and being free to determine what those standards will be.

”Anything less than that and you have a government-imposed sense of morality,” Davis said.