Federal Judge Scolds School Officials For Ruling Out Christian Views on Homosexuality

by Jim Brown
November 26, 2003

(AgapePress) - A federal judge has expressed outrage over a Michigan public high school's decision to exclude Christian clergy from a discussion of homosexuality and religion, saying the school's actions "smack of government and religious totalitarianism."

At a court hearing yesterday, U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen grilled an attorney representing Pioneer High School for two hours, regarding the school's decision to exclude the Christian viewpoint on homosexuality during a "Diversity Week Forum" that was organized by the campus Gay-Straight Alliance. Two militant homosexual teachers in the Alliance ran the panel discussion.

During the hearing on Monday, Rosen scolded school officials for refusing to let the students attending the forum hear the viewpoint that homosexual behavior is incompatible with scripture. The judge said only allowing pro-homosexual clergy to take part in the discussion on homosexuals and religion was equivalent to book burning in Nazi Germany back in the 1930s.

Attorney Robert Muise of the Thomas More Law Center is representing former Pioneer High student Elizabeth Hanson, who sued the school over its censorship. The attorney says it is increasingly common for such discrimination to take place in school programs like Pioneer's Diversity Week forum. Time and again, he says, "we have schools that want to label Christian students' views toward homosexuality as hate speech. And by labeling it as hate speech, they exclude it."

But Muise feels the judge's questioning of the defendants and his remarks to them in this case point toward a favorable outcome. "The judge here correctly showed that the ones that are intolerant are the school officials who won't allow this Christian message, which is, in fact, a message of love and not a message of hate, " he says.

Moreover, Muise feels that the Gay-Straight Alliance's intolerance toward Christianity has the potential to backfire in this case. "What is most remarkable about this is that it's really going to set back the homosexual movement in the public schools," he says.

The attorney says the court has made clear that this is a case of viewpoint discrimination, and what it will establish is that "the Christian view is worthy of being expressed in public, and in fact the Constitution requires it."

A ruling in the case is expected within the next five days.