Posted on 09/26/2005 10:31:48 PM PDT by Bonaparte
Daughter of lesbian couple expelled By Mason Stockstill, Staff Writer ONTARIO - A Chino couple plans to picket a Christian school in Ontario on Monday because officials expelled their daughter after learning her parents are lesbians. Tina Clark said the superintendent of Ontario Christian High School gave her a letter explaining that 14-year-old freshman Shay Clark was being kicked out because her parents' sexual orientation is "inconsistent with a positive Christian life style." "My sexual orientation should have nothing to do with her getting an education," Tina Clark said. "I'm the one that's gay. My daughter's not. Why should her civil rights be infringed?" Shay was crushed by what happened earlier this week, which she said came as a surprise. "I knew that I might have problems," Shay said. "But I never thought it would go that far." Principal Tim Hoekstra and Superintendent Len Stob did not return repeated calls Thursday and Friday seeking comment. Phone calls to several school trustees also were not returned. Clark and her partner, Mitzi Gray, have been together for 22 years. They didn't expect Shay would experience discrimination at the school because her older sister had attended Ontario Christian schools from sixth through ninth grade. Additionally, Shay said her friends knew she lived in a home with two mothers, and "it was never a problem." On Tuesday, however, that changed. Gray said when she went to an unrelated parent meeting that Clark was unable to attend, school administrators were confused by her different last name. The next day, both women were called in and asked point-blank if they were gay, Clark said. When they said they were, Shay was expelled. "These are the same people that patted me on the back the Friday before that and asked me how my week had gone," Clark said. The family's situation is not unusual, said Johnny Chagolla of the Rainbow Pride Youth Alliance, a gay-rights organization in San Bernardino. Often, he said, students at religious schools are more likely to face discrimination. "In cases like this, there's a concern," Chagolla said. "A lot of (religious school officials) say they're very open and affirming, and then you see this, and it contradicts what they're saying." A similar situation arose earlier this year at a Catholic school in Costa Mesa, when parents pressured administrators into barring gay parents after a gay couple enrolled their twin sons at the school. Ontario Christian is affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church, a denomination that considers homosexuality a "condition of disordered sexuality," according to the Web site of the Christian Reformed Church of North America. The church considers the act of homosexual sex to be a sin, which "must be condemned as incompatible with obedience to the will of God as revealed in scripture." However, according to the group's Web site, the church should help gay Christians and "give them support toward healing and wholeness." As the family gathered outside the school for a news conference Friday, students and staff peered at the scene out of the windows. Receptionist Cory Overstreet said administrators would not be available to comment. According to the letter signed by Stob, school officials were not aware of Clark and Gray's relationship at the time Shay was admitted. But both women said that question was never asked, and that both of their names were included in all of the required paperwork. "Had we known they were against homosexuality, we would never have sought this school out," Gray said. "It wasn't like we announced it to the world, but it wasn't a secret, either. We've always been a family." Shay's educational future is unclear. At first, Clark had hoped there was a way Shay could return to Ontario Christian. But now, no one in the family backs that idea. The family is looking for another private school Shay can attend, but the admissions process is typically long, and she might not get in anywhere this year. Public school will probably be the answer for now, Clark said. After she gets to a new school, the family may consider legal action, Clark said. The expulsion was difficult for Shay, who said she is upset about being separated from her friends. As for the school's leadership, "They should be embarrassed," Shay said. - Mason Stockstill can be reached by e-mail mason.stockstill@dailybulletin.com , or by phone at (909) 483-9354
Women plan to protest outside Ontario Christian school
Pizza? You can have Vietnamese, Thai, lobster or French food delivered to your door.
As a straight person, I don't understand this whole focus on gay agenda, etc. Maybe it's just me, but as I get older I have trouble mustering much interest in what other people do with their genitals. In time, I suspect I'll have increasing trouble mustering much enthusiasm for my own genitals.
If that's the case, then they are an apostate denomination that deserves to be destroyed by the unrepentant sodomites they invited in.
True Christian churches support "gay christians" in their efforts to STOP BEING "GAY".
Emphasis mine.
Homosexuality is a condition of disordered sexuality that reflects the brokenness of our sinful world. Persons of same-sex attraction should not be denied community acceptance solely because of their sexual orientation and should be wholeheartedly received by the church and given loving support and encouragement. Christian homosexuals, like all Christians, are called to discipleship, to holy obedience, and to the use of their gifts in the cause of the kingdom. Opportunities to serve within the offices and the life of the congregation should be afforded to them as they are to heterosexual Christians.
Homosexualism (i.e., explicit homosexual practice), however, must be condemned as incompatible with obedience to the will of God as revealed in Scripture. The church affirms that it must exercise the same compassion for homosexuals in their sins as it exercises for all other sinners. The church should do everything in its power to help persons with homosexual orientation and give them support toward healing and wholeness.
Homosexuality: a condition of personal identity in which a person is sexually oriented toward persons of the same sex.
Homosexual: a person who has erotic attractions for members of the same sex and who may or may not actually engage in homosexualism.
Homosexualism: explicit and overt homosexual practice.
Since 1973 the matter of homosexuality has come up repeatedly at synod through overtures from the churches and in ecumenical relations with other denominations. Synod has consistently sustained the 1973 position in spite of pressure from within and outside the denomination. Synod 1999 reviewed the report of its Committee to Give Direction about and for Pastoral Care for Homosexual Members. That report has been sent to the churches for responses. A final form of the report will be presented to Synod 2002.
You don't suppose, do you, that what the church aims to support is a turning away from sin? The church, stating that they support gays, is quite comparable to AA supporting recovering alcoholics. AA is not for drunks who merely want to keep drinking--while folks like that are free to show up at the meetings, by their own choices and actions they will not benefit from the program. AA does not assume that all recovering alcoholics will stay on the wagon forever. Support groups are about the struggle for recovery over a weakness. How is this similar to the church saying that it supports gays? Let's look at what I have asserted point by point:
AA is not for drunks who merely want to keep drinking--while folks like that are free to show up at the meetings, by their own choices and actions they will not benefit from the program.
The church is not for unrepenant sinners--while folks like that are free to show up at church, by their own choices and actions they will not benefit from the program. This point is one to keep foremost in your mind when you think about what the admissions policy states.
AA does not assume that all recovering alcoholics will stay on the wagon forever. Support groups are about the struggle for recovery over a weakness.
The church does not assume that its members will lead sin-free lives--quite the opposite. Congregations are, in my heathen mind, at least, lifelong support groups for sinners battling against their own weaknesses. The verb is of utmost importance here: Battling.
What kind of support do you think the mommies would have received from the church if they showed up and said "We need help overcoming our sin"? Do you think the church would have turned them away? If you honestly think that, we can stop debating this issue right here. The truth is, NO church would react that way. On the other hand, NO church should turn a blind eye to unrepenant sin. That's actually a hateful thing to do, as it imperils the soul of the sinner.
These mommies aren't struggling, battling to overcome thier sin. They are filing a lawsuit.
I pay good money every month to make certain my kids are educated by people who believe the Bible is God's Holy Word. The public schools ridicule my beliefs and actually teach concepts that are completely contrary to the Word of God. I chose to pay extra to have them educated in God's wisdom. I would expect the school administrators to carry-out enforcement of school rules regarless of whether the pagan world agrees with our views. The family should be expelled. They broke the rules willfully and assumed nobody would notice or care.
Not really.
"They sent their older daughter to the same school for years and didnt file a lawsuit."
Your making stuff up again. The article clearly says they claimed to have sent another daughter to other Christian schools."
Since you can not read and you brought this fact up in the forum I will repost what I wrote in our mail....
Clark and her partner, Mitzi Gray, have been together for 22 years. They didn't expect Shay would experience discrimination at the school because her older sister had attended Ontario Christian schools from sixth through ninth grade. Additionally, Shay said her friends knew she lived in a home with two mothers, and "it was never a problem."
If you want to debate the facts... LEARN THE FACTS before you make a fool out of yourself accusing me of making up facts YOU DIDNT READ! Since I can not control your inability to understand the article we are debating it is a waste of my time to try to get the point across. So end of discussion with you.
Okay. I homeschool for the same reason, as I mentioned earlier.
However, last I checked, God's wisdom DOES include caring about those and reaching those who do not know Him.
Given the fact that the two women signed a covenant that they did not live by, it makes sense that the school called them on it. They are a private school with certain standards, and that is their right.
But I am really tired of Christians who are so exclusive that they wouldn't allow a kid who lives in rather difficult circumstances to attend school. If the kid is disruptive, or if the parents are lying, fine...expulsion seems okay. But this thread has delved into the "we have standards, and they aren't welcome among the 'righteous'," and, quite frankly, I find that Pharasaical and antithetical to the message of Christ. Christ welcomes all to the table, and getting sin out of our lives is a process, not always a once and for all.
Again, I hope that this school was prayerful in their dealings with the family. I do not subscribe to "whatever lifestyle, whatever you want to do is okay with Jesus" philosophy, but equally heretical is the "no one welcome who isn't exactly like us" mentality. It is a narrow road.
THANK YOU my point exactly. My point the whole time is to confront our and i am including myself in it too, "country club" atmosphere where we think people have to look and behave like us before we share the good news with them. I certainly have been guilty of this in my life and want to encourage others that it is not the fact that they do everything right that will get them to heavan but by the shear grace of God that we are.
We are a Christian home school family ourselves. We do try to make a point of developing Non christian friends because it is easy to just stay in the Christian Home school community and not seek out those that need Christ.
It is a narrow road. Seems I've heard that somewhere before. Something about a gate, too.
sorry but you are making my point for me....I agree with you.
Pizza, my favorite food! I ate so much pizza during that week I returned home with an Italian accent.
It's not just you. I'm straight too and just can't understand what all the fuss is about. I have absolutely no interest in what others do with their crotches.
I have learned that Ontario is real big on softball and that may be a factor in all of this.
After extensive research into the matter, I've come to the conclusion that gay women have an unfair advantage when it comes to softball. They not only tend to practice, but also consume far less alcohol during the games. Combined, these two elements, seemingly harmless in themselves, combine to clearly provide an unfair advantage when it comes to playing the game. At present time I am forming a committee to investigate these serious allegations.
ROFL!!!
I understand your concern about appearing as a pharisee, however, do you want your 13 year daughter hanging around, making friends and learning to accept lesbian ways? I'm sure these ladies are nice enough to be around but it's still openly sinning and rebelling against God. It's tough teaching our kids to be holy, because God is holy, in a world that is always calling them hypocrits, bigots, uninformed and self-righteous. During the formative years, I will guard them and fill them with God's rules. Hopefully, they'll always be in a Bible-based church that doesn't cave to the pressure of worldly wisdom and teach heresy in order to be "inclusive." There's a time to reach out to non-believers and a time to remove non-repentent sinners from the flock lest they lead others astray. Let's protect our Christian institutions.
I reply to Walkingfeather in Post # 284:
"Your making stuff up again. The article clearly says they claimed to have sent another daughter to other Christian schools."
In Post #328 Walkingfeather claims I misread his earlier post:
"Since you can not read and you brought this fact up in the forum I will repost what I wrote in our mail...."
Amusingly, Walkingfeather then posts an entirely different quote than the one I called him on:
"Clark and her partner, Mitzi Gray, have been together for 22 years. They didn't expect Shay would experience discrimination at the school because her older sister had attended Ontario Christian schools from sixth through ninth grade. Additionally, Shay said her friends knew she lived in a home with two mothers, and "it was never a problem."
Even more amusingly, Walkingfeather then claims I made a fool out of myself for misquoting him:
"If you want to debate the facts... LEARN THE FACTS before you make a fool out of yourself accusing me of making up facts YOU DIDNT READ!"
Well I see you're still at it Mr. Walkingfeather, but you won't get away with lying on FR, you're up against some pretty sharp people here.
So once again, Walkingfeather, it's time for me to feed you some CROWfeather.
Here is the original statement made by Walkingfeather in his Post # 238.
"They sent their older daughter to the same school for years and didnt file a lawsuit.", (emphasis mine)
Walkingfeather was so adament about making this false statement, that he actually emphasized it by structuring it as a whole paragraph.
So, in the name of truth and facts, Walking-feather, the article said they sent their older daughter to OTHER Christian schools, not the SAME one. The difference between "other Christian schools" and "the same school" is not only massively obvious, it's disgustingly deceitful.
For had they sent an older daughter to the SAME school, (as you claim they did), and didn't file a lawsuit, and the SAME school didn't care about lesbian 'parents', then you could make a legitimate case that this wasn't a setup.
But as the facts would have it, the older daughter went to OTHER Christian schools in years past, which has no bearing whatsoever on THIS particular school, which has its own set of rules and regulations.
"OTHER CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS" may or may not have allowed openly homosexual 'parents' to enroll their children. BUT THIS SCHOOL DIDN'T ALLOW IT.
Just curious, how do crow feathers taste?
If my daughter at the age of 13 makes friends with another child whose parents are lesbians, we will do all that we can to educate her about the lifestyle. How we have done that with her older brothers is to tell them that those people have bought into Satan's lies and have taken a love relationship and twisted it into something that is far from what God wanted.
We also have explained to them that these people do not know Jesus, so it would make sense that they would behave according to Satan's lies. We have also told our children (and I hope modeled for them) that the best way to reach these people is by caring about them and loving them. Yes, these people would be coming to our home for dinner. Yes, we would spend time with them without changing a bit of who we are -- we would still pray at meals and still talk about our love for Christ.
Okay, I am really about to put my foot into it. We are in the process of adopting our daughter, and the woman who we selected to be our attorney is a lesbian. We know it. She knows we know it, though she tries to hide it from us. We think she does this because she knows in dealings with us that we are born-again Christians.
She is about to do something for us that involves our daughter's biological father. We have made it clear to her that we do not want to alienate him because we hopefully wish to lead him to Christ someday. She has opened up to us, and is interested in learning more about our faith. I doubt that this would happen if we hadn't selected her to be our attorney.
Now, all of that being said, I would love to have this woman's children know my kids. We are unashamed of the gospel, and we understand it is for those who are even afar off. I am not afraid that my children are going to be homosexual if we reach out to homosexuals. Is my kid going to spend the night at her house? No. My kids didn't spend the night with my kid brother when he was living with a woman either. But we didn't turn her away, either.
Bottom line: if these women were confused about what it means to live a Christian life, and her daughter was expelled because of their relationship, shame on the school. However, if these women were being deceitful and if the kid was causing problems, then the school was right in providing a consequence for the behavior. Christians are so afraid of being contaminated, they forget to be in the world and not of it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.