Court: Private Schools Can Expel Gay Students

A California
appeals court ruled this week that a Lutheran school did not
violate the state antidiscrimination law by expelling two
16-year-old students for forming an intimate bond
"characteristic of a lesbian relationship."

Jane Doe and Mary
Roe, as the now-college students are identified in the
case, will appeal their case to the California supreme
court, their attorney Kirk Hanson told the Los
Angeles Times.

In 2005 they were
expelled from California Lutheran High School in
Wildomar after another student told a teacher that Doe and
Roe loved each other. The student advised the teacher
to look at both students' MySpace pages, where one
identified herself as bisexual and the other said she
was "not sure" about her sexual orientation.

When principal
Gregory Bork questioned the girls, they admitted to
hugging and kissing each other and telling other students
they were lesbians, but they told him they really
only loved each other as friends. The school's policy
is to refuse admission to gay and lesbian students,
according to court documents. Bork suspended them that day
and then expelled them a month later.

Roe and
Doe have not disclosed their sexual orientation within
the realm of the case.

The court cited a
1998 case with the Boy Scouts of America, which was a
social organization and not a business, and therefore it did
not have to comply with laws that prohibit
discrimination.

"The school's
religious message is inextricably intertwined with its
secular functions," wrote Justice Betty A. Richli for the
appeals court. "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." (Michelle Garcia, Advocate.com)