By Gudrun Schultz
SAN FRANCISCO, California, June 30, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Christian high school that expelled two students for allegedly engaging in a lesbian relationship can be sued over the decision, the California Supreme Court ruled today.
The sixteen-year-old girls were expelled last September for violating the school’s code of conduct, school principal Gregory Bork said in a letter to the girls’ parents. The 142-student school in Riverside County, which is owned by the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, prohibits actions “contrary to Christian decency.” The letter stated that while the school had no evidence of any improper physical contact between the girls, they shared a “bond of intimacy” that was “unchristian,” according to a report by the Metropolitan News.
The court denied review of an appeal by the California Lutheran High School Association in a unanimous decision, reported the San Francisco Chronicle Wednesday. The CLHSA had argued that a religious institution could legitimately deny access to homosexual students without contravening California’s anti-discrimination law, the Unruh Act, which prohibits businesses from discriminating based on sexual orientation.
The California Lutheran High School said it was exempt from that law since it was not a business and that regardless, freedom of religion and freedom of association rights would allow it to uphold its religious principles.
“Any implementation of the Unruh Act would contradict the stated position of [the school] that homosexuality is immoral,” wrote attorney for the school John McKay to the Supreme Court.
The complaint against the school, filed by the girls’ parents, cites invasion of privacy and discrimination based on sexual orientation by the school, among other charges. The suit seeks reinstatement of the girls in the school, unspecified damages, and the protection of homosexual students from expulsion by the school in future, based on sexual orientation.
See related LifeSiteNews coverage:
Kentucky Governor Sued After Baptist College Expels Student for Gay Lifestyle
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/apr/06042704.html