A bit of religious inclusivity argumentation in Denver makes for an interesting discussion.
On the one side, we have a little girl. Probably too little to understand much of what’s going on, but not too young to be used as a pawn by the cynical.
On another side, we have the parents of the little girl - in this case, biological mom and lesbian partner. Who, reading through the lines of the various news stories, probably (a) lied on their initial application to the school, (b) were pushing to tell other kids about how it was “not wrong” to be gay, and (c) did enough that the school administration’s attention was called to the situation.
On another side, we have other kids in the class. Who probably are too young to care, but again were probably turned into pawns being made to discuss the “two mommies” situation.
On another side, we have the other kids’ parents. At least a few of who, sending their kids to a private, religiously based school, were (at least statistically speaking) likely to have a problem having to have the “well this is why Daisy having two mommies is not a good situation” discussion with their 4- or 5-year-olds.
On another side, we have the school administration, likely caught between church doctrine, the lesbians, the other parents, and trying to work things out so as not to cause untold misery to a 4 year old girl. More on that in a minute.
On the final side, we have… well, I personally would have stronger words regarding them, but let’s just call them “the usual round of outspoken, opinionated advocate groups who happen to have a deep-seated and preexisting hatred for the Catholic church.” The ones who the lesbians enlisted for an attack.
The school came to a decision, one which I believe was probably the best they could come up with. It’s obvious that the “two mommies” were pretty outspoken about their lifestyle choice. Whether you consider it moral or immoral, the Catholic Church believes it is immoral, and it was obviously causing enough consternation at some level or other that they believed having the kid exist in the school long-term would be seen as a “signal” that they were condoning the behavior in question. On the other hand (and having been through it myself, I can say from experience that it does indeed suck), uprooting a kid in the middle of semester causes hell. Social cliques are formed, and the kid gets hit with the “oh that’s the interloper” stigma. Bring a kid in at the beginning of a new school year, along with the usual classroom shuffling, and there is much less in the way of social integration trouble. So the school made what I consider a generous offer: the kid could stay through the end of school year, giving the lesbian moms >6 months to study and investigate and apply to new schools and be all prepared for next fall.
The response from the lesbians was to enlist the usual hate groups. I consider this saddening, and not a little indicative of ulterior motives on their side.
As far as churches go, Will’s spoken of his friend being kicked out of one for being in an unmarried, cohabiting relationship. Some new-age-ey churches say “gay, straight, bi, poly, whatever the hell you want.” Some protestant churches are openly dealing with schisms surrounding their ordination of openly gay individuals. Some churches struggle with the married-vs-unmarried priesthood concept. Some churches are dealing with the whether-or-nots of ordaining women. Chances are if you look hard enough, you can find a church that doesn’t care on your “particular” issue of choice.
Generally, however, a church or church-based entity is going to be subject to different rules than society. There are things society condones/tolerates/”puts up with” that they may say are immoral. They may ask you not to bring these up within their doors. They may pull you aside and say “for the good of your soul, you really shouldn’t be doing that.” Occasionally, if someone is really, really insistent on making a public jerk of themselves about some point or other, they may ask them not to attend church services. If you are working for them or applying for a job with them, and it comes out that you are consistently doing something they consider seriously immoral and are unrepentant about it, they may refuse to hire you or even let you go.
In the case of a 4 year old girl in Denver, her “two mommies” apparently made the situation untenable enough that the school/church’s response was, “please find another school for your child.” The sad side of me says it sucks to be the little girl. The cynical side of me says, given what’s being “left unsaid” by both sides, that most likely the little girl is an unwitting pawn in a very, very cynical ploy by the “two mommies.”
There’s a couple of issues here. Namely, the behavior of the church and the behavior of the lesbian parents.
Regarding the behavior of the lesbian parents, they could be everything you describe and possibly more. If I were betting even odds, I would probably bet on it. However, it assumes facts not in evidence. They could be parents one of whom attended the school or sent their kid to that school because their public school stunk or support the Catholic Church with every policy with one glaring exception.
And if any or all of those alternate explanations were true, their girl would still be kicked out of the school by the rationale given by the church. The church’s rationale was not that the parents were a-holes or that they lied on an application, but that they were homosexual.
And of course, that’s the church’s right. Through and through. If the parents were to sue the school, I’d support the school. If they urged a law be passed, I’d oppose the law. But voicing their objection to the policy and being upset about it? I don’t blame them one bit for that. That’s absolutely their right.
Comment by trumwill — March 9, 2010 @ 5:35 pm
And setting the attack dogs upon the school, in the form of the usual set of anti-Catholic hate groups? See, that’s where my suspicion that there is “more to the story” begins.
Comment by web — March 9, 2010 @ 9:14 pm
The “attack dogs” in this case seem to be Boulder Pride and a UMC-aligned/interfaith school called the Iliff School of Theology. Neither seem to rise to the level of hate group. Further, we don’t know who contacted them (or any other group contacted) - Boulder Pride claims that they were contacted by “the community” who could be the parents or someone who knows them - and for what purpose. As it stands, though, they seem to be saying (from the linked article - I don’t have net access to dig much further) “God doesn’t agree with this” and not “Down with the unholy and bigoted Catholic Church!”
None of this is to say that you’re not 100% right and that there insn’t much more to the story here. But that’s speculation and “reading between lines.” We don’t know and I’m not comfortable condemning the parents based on the assumptions I’m looking at. We do know, though, that the Church has made no claims that they booted the girl for any reason other than her mothers’ lesbianism.
That is their right, just as it is the right of others to voice their disapproval.
Comment by trumwill — March 9, 2010 @ 10:59 pm
Sorry Will, but GLAAD takes it to the point of an extortionist/hate group.
There’s a long record of their extorting money from different groups - a famous case involves their “convincing” of Kevin Smith and Miramax to donate to the Matthew Shepard fund (in the amounts of $200,000 from Miramax and another $10k direct from Smith’s pockets), by the “entertainment media director” of GLAAD, lest there be a large and public picketing/boycott of the movie Dogma (which, ironically, some silly Catholic groups actually issued a boycott of and picketed).
They also spend a heck of a lot of time targeting the Catholic Church from the top down, partly calling everything from the Pope’s statements on downwards “homophobic” (their favorite attack word), but mostly because the Catholic Church is one of the few organizations that won’t pay them hush money. Meanwhile, they are remarkably quiet about companies or groups that just pay them off.
I’m willing to call them what they are. Either they’re a hate group with an anti-Catholic bent, an extortion racket targeting Catholics because the Church refuses to “pay up” (in a “nice church you got here, shame if something should… happen… to it” sense), or a little of both. The fact that they “just happen” to leap so quickly into the fray with the two lesbians is what makes me put the odds of this being a deliberate, cynical set-up so darn high.
Comment by web — March 10, 2010 @ 6:34 am
GLAAD may be a bunch of extortionists (I believe they are), but they warranted no mention in the article and their involvement appears to be tangential. They could have found out of it a hundred different ways. GLAAD could have been contacted by the parents, could have been contacted by someone else familiar with the situation, or could be simply keeping tabs on Boulder Pride activities. GLAAD didn’t so much as issue a press release (first one on 3/8) until after the protests started (3/7) and after regional newspapers picked up the story (late last week). It seems the church made its decision early last week. If they were contacted first thing, they sure weren’t fast to pick that ripe fruit. Again, though, that’s not to say that events didn’t occur exactly as you believe they did. They might have. They might not have, too. It simply isn’t possible to declare bad faith on the part of the parents without leaning heavily on uncharitable assumptions about people we know next to nothing about.
I should also add that the parents themselves do not appear to be eager to be named. I might take a more jaundiced view if they were out there talking to every camera that would look at them. I would also lend more weight to your theory if GLAAD were front and center on this rather than a local organization that likely had its finger on the pulse of such things. But that’s speculation, too.
Whatever the case, I simply can’t get on board with assuming bad faith and then excoriating the parents based on those assumptions. Whoever the parents are, the church has an announced policy of the sort that is going to generate controversy among large swaths of the American population. They don’t really care who the parents are except that they are lesbians. That’s their right, but they own the objections they raise.
Comment by trumwill — March 10, 2010 @ 10:12 am