This article describes a Christian school in Ontario, Ca. that has expelled a 14 year old girl school because her parents are gay. The school policy requires that at least one parent may not engage in practices "immoral or inconsistent with a positive Christian life style, such as cohabitating without marriage or in a homosexual relationship".

School administrators learned of the parents' relationship this week after the student was reprimanded for talking to the crowd during a football game.

The question for debate is:
Was Ontario Christian School justified in expelling Shay Clark from school for having homosexual parents?

Was Ontario Christian School justified in expelling Shay Clark from school for having homosexual parents?

If the school is a private instution, and not in receipt of government money (paid for by gays and straights alike*), and their policy was clearly spelled out in all their admissions documentation, then I suppose they are justified in law, if not morally.

But is not the central tenet of Christianity that of forgiveness? Cast not the first stone, and all that? Jesus was friendly with the ostracised and the outcast - tax-collectors, women of shady reputation - and pointedly didn't act pally with the "pillars of the community" of the time; the Pharisees who were only too eager to pass judgement on other people's morality and behaviour.

I can't help but think that even if the Ontario and wider Canadian justice system can be grudgingly satisfied that this decision was formally correct, the founder of the religion these people claim to profess would by incandescently angry. (If he existed at all, of course.)

* If they are a publicly-funded of subsidised institution, then those funds or subsidies should be immediately withdrawn to protect the sensibilities of the poor school governors. After all, nobody would be able to tell whether the taxes had come from people that they would morally approve of, so it's better to be safe and withdraw all the money than risk their spiritual pollution, right?

Was Ontario Christian School justified in expelling Shay Clark from school for having homosexual parents?
Ah, the California parochial school system....I still have nightmares...<shudder>

One thing is confusing to me; to be expelled, one must be attending said school, and as the official put it, the girl didn't "meet the policies of admission". Huh?!

One has to assume that a) the school was asleep at the wheel during the admissions process and didn't notice the girl had two mommies, or b.) she was never admitted to the school as a student, and thus was not expelled, but refused admission.

Either way, being a private school, Ontario Christian is free to be as bigoted as they like. As far as I know, parochial schools in California receive no public funds. Is it justified? In my opinion, no; bigotry, hatefulness and narrow-mindedness is not justifiable.

NO, as a private institution, they were within thier rights- all this does is highlight the folly in attempting school vouchers. Private schools can do what they wish, as long as it is not criminal and they recieve no tax dollars, not one, for anything.

Was Ontario Christian School justified in expelling Shay Clark from school for having homosexual parents?

I don't know that it is the central tenet, but it is a major one. Another major one is that evil should not be tolerated. If the school's religious beliefs are that homosexuality is evil, then they should not be tolerating homosexuality. Of course they should forgive, but not allow evil to persist, as they see it.

I don't see that they have done anything wrong here.

I went to this type of private Christian school, graduating in 1983. My school was run by Mormon fundamentalists, and among other minor things, even being found with cigarettes in your purse or pocket could get you permanently expelled. It might not have been fair, but my parents were paying tuition for me to attend; it's not as if the school HAD to provide education. My particular reason for attending this school is that I had been mercilessly bullied and tormented in public school; if nothing else, the Mormon school provided sanctuary for me, since the kind of aggression and acting out that had plagued me up until then was simply not tolerated there.

No, I don't think the Christian school in this news story was being fair. Of course they weren't. But if I had been the parents of the girl who was expelled, I'm not sure I would want her attending such a school anyway -- particularly not if she was likely to hear that her parents were living in sin.

There are certainly private schools -- some unaffiliated with any religious group -- which would provide a quality education to this girl without judging her parents. And if I were those parents, I'd be investigating them.

Oh Yes.

It is a Christian School after all, and they may have whatever policies they wish (which presumably follow Christian Standard), and Homosexuality according to Christianity is seen as "bad".

If it was a Public School this would obviously not be in their right. But on the other hand, if it was a Public School, it would not be a Christian School, with strong Christian values which it follows, but open to anyone.


Question i ask myself is, how come the parents sent the girl to a Christian school when they know very well that the Christian Doctrines declares homosexuality as "immoral"? Did they lack the basic knowledge about Christianity, or did the school not make their policies clear?

Eric -- I have to wonder that myself, although there are certainly gay and lesbian Christians. As a Christian myself (employed by a major Protestant denomination), I can attest to the fact that not ALL Christians share the belief that homosexuality is wrong.

I don't know what the public schools are like in Ontario, CA; however, plenty of non-Christians send their children to Catholic parochial schools or other Christian institutions because the public schools in their area are deficient, or because they want the stronger discipline imposed in the religious schools. Perhaps this was the case with the Clark family.

The question for debate is:

Was Ontario Christian School justified in expelling Shay Clark from school for having homosexual parents?

If it is a private institution then it was justified only because it isnt being paid by the government. However, the school will feel the wrath of this couple only because they are loosing money rather then gaining it by allowing her to stay there. I think the school should have allowed her to stay there and next year denied her entry.

Was Ontario Christian School justified in expelling Shay Clark from school for having homosexual parents?

When we say "justified," do we mean in the legal sense, i.e., can they legally expel the girl because her parents are lesbians? Seems obvious that they can. Or do we mean justified in the moral sense, i.e., is this just and fair to us in our personal sense of right and wrong?

If the latter, I suppose it all comes down to our subjective viewpoints on what "should" and "shouldn't be." People who view homosexuality as "bad" will applaud what happened and are probably relieved to see that the girl was rooted out of the school. People who are tolerant of homosexuality will probably see the incident as religiously motivated bigotry, i.e., just another illustration of Christians not following Christ's example, etc.

Then you would be forced to define "just and fair" "right and wrong". Which is subjective. There is no Universal Truth about emotions. Personally, i see it quite ludicrous to state something as "this is not just" or "this is not fair". Life's hard, buy a Helmet



You mean Christians following Christian Doctrines?
The Bible is very clear, when mentioning, about what it thinks about homosexuality. It is also somewhat paradoxical considering other cultures in does days (greek anyone) which where very open to homosexuality and even what we today would define as "child molestation".


The bumper sticker i am trying to put here is that this was the right decision in any sense of the word. The School had its principles, the parents where either not aware of them, or went against them as some sort of protest, and the school, quite simple, expels the girl because of the lack of moral flavour which the school consider themselves stand for.

What you think about it is not of interest, as then you could say you dont "like" that certain people have certain jobs, because its unfair, you want that job. Or that its not just that your salary is not the same as your bosses... And so forth. Get it ?

Excellent point. Clearly most of the responses here have focused on the legal sense. Morally, this is obviously punishing the child for the supposed sins of the parents. I'm not sure what Christian morals that is upholding. How is it the parent's status the child's fault? As the saying goes, children don't choose their parents. Wouldn't Christian morality want to reach out and help the child? Apparently not....

Well, then. If that's the case, this school should also immediately expel any students whose parents are divorced, since, actually, the Bible is even clearer in its condemnation of divorce than of homosexuality.

Was Ontario Christian School justified in expelling Shay Clark from school for having homosexual parents?
Legally, they acted within their guidelines. Morally, this is repugnant. To disrupt a child's education for this is just plain wrong. It would be one thing to review a case at the end of the school year and councel the parent's to enrol her elsewhere. I'd have no problem with that. Private schools are allowed to do what they wish within the law but I find their practice here to be very "unChristian".

Fundamentally, I find this practice silly. But that's likely more for the SS marriage debate than here.

No, I said Christians not following Christ's example.

Christ preached tolerance, love, and acceptance. If he was in charge at the Ontario Christian School, would he cast her out, etc.

Get it?

I havent said they should'nt. I just pointed to the Biblical fact, thats all.



I dont know which Bible you chose to read, but the Bible i read do not have much of "tolerance", "love" or "acceptance" in it. Which brings the question, have you ever read The Bible from First to Last word at all? Most people have not.

The Christian God is a very unstable guy, to put it in nice form. "Psychotic" if you prefer straight-on-wording. I only bring this up to point out that anyone that disagree's with the Schools policies clearly have no knowledge about the religion (Christianity). If you happen to be Christian yourself and find these specific moral code you defined (tolerance, love, and acceptance and so forth), i recommend you to change your religion, as this is not what Christianity stands for. Perhaps Atheism would suit you?

I tend to agree with Azure-Citizen. Keep in mind that synonyms often have subtle shades of meaning. Remember when Al Gore talked about helping create the internet through congressional funding and "create" got turned into “invent.”

According to The Oxford American Dictionary:



Pardon the pun, but I think this decision reeks to high heaven. The school is “punishing” a kid for the alleged “sins” of the parents. While the school probably has the authority to do this, I can see no justification beyond exercising petty minds and mean spirits. That is, unless one buys into the idea that might makes right.

BTW: I put punish in quotation marks. Why would anyone want to go to such a school. This is not the first time someone has been kicked out of a religious school? Jerry Lee Lewis was expelled from an Assembly of God seminary in Waxahachie, Texas as a teen. Think how much the world would have missed if he had become a preacher.



It's not an either or thing! I find agnosticism a better alternative.

BTW: Eric I have, as they say in Texas, "read The Bible from Cover to Cover" treading very lightly over the passages about who knew who and who begot who. Some of it is pretty dull, forgettable reading.

I don't want to throw the thread off-track, but I wanted to clear something up: God didn't write the Bible. The "psychotics" you speak of were men...several of them, who wrote the Bible from their own experiences, preconceptions and prejudices. Not to mention all the distortions down through the years.

When we say someone isn't "acting very Christian", I doubt the first thing that comes to mind is "not very psychotic".

The personal dig to all who don't subscribe to your version of Christianity was uncalled for, too.

Was Ontario Christian School justified in expelling Shay Clark from school for having homosexual parents?

The school my children attend has a very similar clause to the one in this school's admission policy:



Part of a Christian school's curriculum is morality. If what they are teaching is being undermined at home, then I can certainly see their point: why tilt with windmills?

That being said, I don't know where this girl's father figures in, but if he is quote unquote "moral" then they would have to let her in. Apparently, it wasn't worth fighting for from the parents perspective, since they aren't appealing

For those who brought the teachings of Jesus into this, remember that Jesus does not love sin. Sinners who are willing to repent were welcomed by him, no matter what their sin. Those who continued with sin were not. Jesus did teach that simply being moral was not enough, but he did not denounce church law. He denounced those who clung to it as if it was sufficient.

It is up to each school to decide what type of family superstructure it desires. Indeed, if it is a private school they are well within their right. It may not be fair, but little ever is. My only qualm with this story is that the girl should have been denied entry upon application to the school and not put in such a sticky situation now that school is well under way.

Then again, on a moral front: a girl should not be held responsible for the choices (or sins) of her parents. It is not her fault she has homosexual parents and ethically it is wrong of the school to associate her with the "sin" that her family lives in.

I would suggest that there is more to the matter than "punishing" the child. How is the school supposed to work this? As some have observed, you only need one moral parent. Why? Because someone moral needs to show up for parent-teacher conferences, school events, etc. And the problem here is that the school will have to denounce what it considers inappropriate conduct, should the same occur in relation to the school or otherwise become a subject of public discussion. To use one example, mom and mom attend school functions and openly display behavior that most of us would consider reserved for those who know each other [in the biblical sense]. Where does that put the child? And as innocent as we may or might find children to be, they can also be very cruel to each other [and witness the one soul who had to take refuge in a private school for just that reason]. And so the child is now in the position of having the school deride her parents in a public manner and she is otherwise subject to some cruel abuse from her school mates. So, again, maybe this is not all about some school "punishing" some child.

Now, for a brief diversion to correct some erroneous theology. Yeshua and the adulterer. She was caught in the act. Leading to the obvious question: Then where is the man so that we can stone him too? So when Yeshua was speaking about those without sin casting the first stone, by sin, he wasn't referring to nine years ago when that man asking the question stole some dates from that other man's tree. He was talking about the monumental sin[s] that the one asking the question, and those with him, were then engaged in.

Well, there's seems to be a consensus of sorts here.

Legal for the school to do this? Sure. A private school can require all kinds of crazy things. They can even discriminate on the basis of race, although that carries some serious financial consequences:

Official IRS policies on private schools (PDF file)

The bottom line here is that private schools which discriminate on the basis of race lose their tax-exempt status as charities. Let's get back to this in a moment.

Ethical for the school to do this? That depends on your ethical system, of course. All I can do is offer my own. Since I believe that romantic and sexual love between adults of the same sex is a positive good, to be encouraged; that two adults of the same sex sharing the joys, sorrows, and challenges of parenting is a positive good, to be encouraged; I can only conclude that this school is behaving wickedly.

CrusingRam raises a critical point here. I trust that we are in agreement that a private school which discriminates on the basis of race should not receive a penny of government money, either directly or through school vouchers. Personally, I would extent this to include private schools which discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. The Ontario Christian School openly discriminates on the basis of religion, also:

Ontario Christian School's Own Website



I sure hope this place doesn't get any direct or indirect government support.

I do not find that a fair statement at all. It is all to often we here the "discrimination" card. Discrimination would mean partly prejudiced (which means a opinion based on nothing), and this is not the case at all.

The School made their judgement based on the moral aspect. Christianity Teaches that Homosexuality is immoral. To not act upon these intructions, the school would go against the doctrines they have decided to follow. You can not call it discriminatory, as this would not be a correcy definition of it.

1. The School is a Christian Scool.
2. They reject none-Christians

The girls parents did not fit the Christian profile, hence, they rejected/threw her out. There is no dscrimination at all here, only following policies they set up beforehand, and the parents should have been aware about.

Bob Jones U lost it's tax exempt status for not allowing the "mixing of races".

These are the same folks that want goverment vouchers for private schools.

It is not against the bible for them to discriminate against gays.

Christians, as all human beings do, tend to "look at the mote in others eye while ignoring the beam in ours"- if those christians were really interested in following the bible, meaning old and new testament, as closely as the law allows- you have to ask yourself- are there any fat parents in that school- after all, the bible has pages and pages and pages of exortation not to be fat and to eat right- but around three little passages on gays, and then, only gays being male to male- I am not sure there is any scriptures at all that deal with female gay behavior - and there are some passages in Song of Soloman that seem to say it is okay. There is no passage that I am aware of right now that speaks negatively about female on female sexuality.

So, they are not even really living by the bible LOL

But they have every right to kick the kid out- it just isn't right or biblical, or even consistant.

Ah, but Cruising, now you take on the deal we would all call "hypocrisy", which really is not fair, as contemporary Christianity is based on being hypocritical.

But as said, they may chose whatever passages they want in the Bible and use. It is up to them if they want to ignore certain, and put out certain parts. Discrimination is not a word you could possible use, if so, i would like to make a simile here:


I am applying for a School called the IMSS (Intelligent Mediam Society School). They have a basic fee of 6000 US Dollars. I get rejected by the School because i refuse to pay the fee....


This simile is exactly the same as topic. The girl got rejected because her parents where homosexual, the school demanded that they may not be, because of moral issues. I get rejected because i refuse to pay the fee the school set. Just change the "fee" for "moral". They should have seen it coming.

Was Ontario Christian School justified in expelling Shay Clark from school for having homosexual parents?

We might say so in the humanistic legal sense of things, but the term Christian ought to be taken out of the school's title. Rejecting an innocent child because the adult parents might sin is not being a Christian. If this is the principle, then all of the children should be expelled because, as every genuine Christian knows, all adults are sinners.

That's why Christians aren't supposed to judge others, else they get judged by the Big Guy. This is also the basic notion of the religion -- Jesus died for our sins, all of us, and this was necessary because all are sinners.

However, if we look at this only in the humanistic legal sense, the action isn't forbidden by law. Until laws get on the books banning the discrimination against people due to sexual orientation, or against their friends and family, we in this society are humanistic, and bad ones at that. Certainly not Christian.

If we want to be good humanists on this, then we need to define when an institution can use the term Christian in its title. I suggest that the Ontario Christian School be renamed to the Ontario School for The Children of Heterosexuals. After all, this is the primary prerequisite for admission, as demonstrated by its very behavior.

Adults only? Have not heard that one before....


EDITED: oops, i think that was a one-linet, Will be extended soon, im just in a big rush.

EricStanze, God forgives children and fools. Adults who should know better are not.

Anyway, all the parents of the school children are adults, and they are all sinners, and so all the children should be expelled -- in effect, shut the school down. It's impossible for anyone to meet the criterion for admission.

I find it hard to swallow how many people here are going on and on about "tolerance" and "not judging". By that logic, we should welcome people like Ted Bundy and Dennis Rader into our homes. To do otherwise would be judgmental. We should allow pot-smokers to babysit our kids, because to do otherwise would be intolerant. Of course we have to pass judgment, on each and every person. The Christian ideal of "not judging" is that we should not try to pass final judgment, nor should we feel justified in any negative behavior towards them based on our observations.

Since when was the criteria for admission that everyone be sinless? I must have missed that paragraph. The criteria was for a minimum standard of behavior on the part of at least one of the parents.

A determination has to be made as to the good that will come from allowing the child to attend vs. the harm that will come if a student picks up the bad behavior. Having a parent who occasionally gossips, while wrong, is hardly reason for denying a child admission. Having two lesbian parents, is a different matter entirely, to a Christian organization that condemns the practice.