Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Lutheran high school can expel lesbians

The California Court of Appeals so held yesterday. Doe v. California Lutheran High School Ass'n, 2009 WL 161869.

Defendants successfully contended that they were not a "business" subject to California's antidiscrimination law, because their high school was private, nonprofit, selective, and focused on religious education. Though the boundaries of what kinds of private entities are exempt from antidiscrimination laws can be a difficult one, it is undeniably a line that needs to be drawn somewhere, and it is hard to find fault with the court's ruling on that ground. (Note that this is a quite different question from whether entities that clearly are businesses can claim a religious exemption - the California Supreme Court has clearly said they cannot.)

All that said, the California Appellate Report comments:
I know that if I taught at a private high school -- say, for example, the California Lutheran High School in Wildomar -- I'd definitely spend my valuable time looking up the myspace pages of all the female students in my class to see if any of them said that they were bisexual or in love with another female student.

Yes, and if I were the principal of said high school, and a teacher discovered that two female students had in fact so identified themselves, I'd definitely call them into my office and interrogate them about whether they had a consensual lesbian relationship. And if they admitted that they had, in fact, kissed each other and felt that they were in love, you can be darn sure that I'd expel them. 'Cause, sure, we've had male students who used drugs or alcohol and stuff like that who we've only given, say, temporary suspensions to. But a teenage woman questioning her sexuality and -- gasp! -- maybe being a lesbian?! The horror. We're definitely kicking you out.
And that about says it all.

1 comment:

Quirkyster said...
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