CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – No one has to attend a private, religious high school.
If a student enrolls, with or without a Wisconsin school choice voucher, you would assume that they see value in the school’s faith-based teachings. Yes, a student should expect to follow their school’s rules, including religious instruction and the school’s code of conduct.
Wisconsin Watch, a liberal journalism service, is agog that most LGBTQ behaviors violates religious school code of conduct. They told the story of two female students at Fox Valley Lutheran School. The captain of the cheerleading team and a basketball star were in a dating relationship. The school told them that the relationship violated the school’s code of conduct. Either it would end, or they would be expelled.
Wisconsin Watch presents the story as if religious schools should be forced to accept LGBTQ behavior as the price for accepting students who pay for some of their tuition with taxpayer-funded vouchers. Another student at Fox Valley Lutheran wrote to the Evers Administration, which looked into the matter, and then determined there was nothing the state could do because it was a private institution.
This is bunk.
Every student who attends a private, religious high school is there because that’s the school they choose over all others. They know the rules before they enroll. If they object to them, they’re free to go to school somewhere else. Indeed, at a public high school the gay relationship between the cheerleader and the basketball star would be celebrated, not shunned.
Many parents and students specifically seek out a religious education because they want biblical truth taught to their kids. They choose a school where locker room and restroom controversies wouldn’t exist. (Private religious schools are exempt from Title IX.)
Wisconsin Watch has the audacity to suggest that the religious teachings, that the vast majority of the student body and their parents wanted when choosing a school, should be eschewed because two students find the rules to be inconvenient to their love lives. No. When you enroll in a private, religious school you agree to uphold their religious standards: no same-sex dates to the prom, no founding of the satan club, no taking of the Lord’s name in vain. If those rules are impossible for you, you’re in the wrong school.
Chris Conley
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