Parenting Choices

Read this on AOL this morning. Take a gander.....

School Expels Girl for Having Gay Parents

ONTARIO, Calif. (Sept. 23) - A 14-year-old student was expelled from a Christian school because her parents are lesbians, the school's superintendent said in a letter.
Shay Clark was expelled from Ontario Christian School on Thursday.
"Your family does not meet the policies of admission," Superintendent Leonard Stob wrote to Tina Clark, the girl's biological mother.
Stob wrote that 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," The Los Angeles Times reported in Friday's edition.
Stob could not be reached for comment by the newspaper. Shay and her parents said they won't fight the ruling.
School administrators learned of the parents' relationship this week after Shay was reprimanded for talking to the crowd during a football game, Tina Clark said.
Clark and her partner have been together 22 years and have two other daughters, ages 9 and 19.
09/23/05 07:04 EDT
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.


SO here's the thing (you know I always have to have a thing):
I think this is the most ridiculous reason for expulsion that I have ever heard. And I certainly think this violates the child's right to an education, and the freedom to have the kind of family that you have.

But there is something I don't get. How come these parents decided to send their child to a Christian school in the first place? I mean, yes, they have the RIGHT to seek a Christian-based education for their children, absolutely. But doesn't that choice pretty much amount to sending the lamb to the wolves?

Given the political climate right now, what would compel them to put their daughter into that atmosphere of overt intolerance and injustice? Didn't they read the school policy before enrolling their child? Or any recent newspaper? Hello? That vicious and ignorant sentence about an "immoral.....homosexual relationship" alone should have sent them to the nearest Montessori school.

I hear so many gay parents talk about their rights. And you know that I agree that they have them. I also understand that there must be a certain level of acceptance of their "special circumstances" by both the children and their community- and that the child of a homosexual is going to have to develop a pretty tough hide to survive in this world.

But at some point, I also believe that parents- gay or straight- have the DUTY to protect their children from UNNECESSARY scrutiny and ridicule. We make sure they are clean and have the supplies they need. We wipe their noses and check their ears, and teach them how to raise their hands and not cut in line. All in the name of "social acceptance" at school.

So why would anyone decide to place their child in a school where they already have a giant strike against them? There are plenty of private schools- this is in Ontario CA, not the middle of Montana somewhere- and some decent public schools, so why enroll your child in the one place that has never deviated from publicly proclaiming the belief that your very existence is evil?

At the risk of offending some of you- and I really hope I don't- this reminds me of a choice I made with my Oldest a few years ago. It's a trivial comparison, but go with me here.
She was in 3rd grade, and just on the cusp of being a pre-teen vs. a little girl. For some reason, she decided that she wanted to wear her hair in 4 pony tails on top of her head. Not 2...FOUR. And she begged me to do her hair that way for school. It may have had something to do with her very best friend that year being an African-American with gorgeous hair- and perhaps my Oldest just wanted to have a similar 'do. But straight red hair was not going to look so hot in 4 fountains springing from the top of her head. I was a Room Mother who spent a lot of time at the school, and knew this wasn't a trend. And I knew if she showed up on that playground looking like a clown, she'd never live it down- and she had at least 5 more years with those kids. So I talked her out of it. It wasn't easy, and she threw a little tantrum. But it was the right thing to do- and I explained it to her very carefully: my job at that moment was to protect her from any unnecessary teasing. With a hair style like that, she would have been asking for it!

Look, there's enough hard stuff to deal with. And whether a kid's in 3rd grade, or 14 years old, there will be some form of social stigma placed in every single kid in the class. Over and under Weight, glasses, braces, allergies, weird lunch choices, too-good grades, the body-function accidents. So many unavoidable reasons to be ostracized.
Why give your child more?

I feel sorry for the girl who has to start at a new school next week, who was just beginning to settle into her high school years, who will feel that the world is against her... being 14 is crappy anyway, but now she knows that life is unfair.
But, as much as I think the school policy is wrong, and that the administrators should have made an effort to handle it differently, I also blame the parents for putting their child in that position. The school made it very clear how they would treat their daughter, and the parents could have protected her from that.

And don't even get me started on being "reprimanded for talking to the crowd at a football game".

That's my rant for today.

Hey, if you get a minute, send a prayer and/or good thought toward those poor people in the Gulf. Unbelievable, huh?