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An appeals panel finds California Lutheran High School in Riverside County is not a business and therefore doesn't have to comply with a state law barring discrimination based on sexual orientation.
By Maura Dolan
January 28, 2009
Reporting from San Francisco -- After a Lutheran school expelled two 16-year-old girls for having "a bond of intimacy" that was "characteristic of a lesbian relationship," the girls sued, contending the school had violated a state anti-discrimination law.
In response to that suit, an appeals court decided this week that the private religious school was not a business and therefore did not have to comply with a state law that prohibits businesses from discriminating. A lawyer for the girls said Tuesday that he would ask the California Supreme Court to overturn the unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal.
The appeals court called its decision "narrow," but lawyers on both sides of the case said it would protect private religious schools across California from such discrimination suits.
Kirk D. Hanson, who represented the girls, said the "very troubling" ruling would permit private schools to discriminate against anyone, as long as the schools used their religious beliefs as justification.
Strangely, I agree. This is a religiously based school and have every right to expect that the student body conforms their religious tenets. Attendance at this school is not mandated and their are other schools available. Just one of those dirty pieces on the wall between church and state.
Strangely, I agree. This is a religiously based school and have every right to expect that the student body conforms their religious tenets. Attendance at this school is not mandated and their are other schools available. Just one of those dirty pieces on the wall between church and state.
I would agree if they had actually been caught breaking school policy! All they admitted to was loving each other as friends!
No diiferent from golf clubs that exclude women, or the Boy Scouts and their gay/atheist phobias. As long as you're a private entity, your right of free assembly is pretty strong. It's only if you offer yourself as a public accommodation that you have to be reasonable and play nice...
they finally seperated church and state and now they want it the other way? regardless of my personal feelings on this issue, i think disagreeing with this decision is hypocritical for liberals.
I would agree if they had actually been caught breaking school policy! All they admitted to was loving each other as friends!
I admit that this is on the grayer area of the spectrum, but like Liberty Universities prohibition against interracial dating, the school has a right (as FU as that right may) to determine who is or isn't appropriate for their student body, even if that is based upon wild speculation.
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