Judge Finds School Used "Clergy" to Push Homosexuality
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Lee Duigon



October 14, 2004







Five ordained clergymen and a deacon visited a public high school in 2002 to
teach the student body what the Bible says about homosexuality.







Was this a Hallelujah moment?







A federal judge this month found that authorities at Pioneer High School in
Ann Arbor, Michigan, knowingly violated a Christian student's constitutional
rights in their zeal to promote the homosexual agenda.







Four ministers, a rabbi, and a deacon, as part of the school's annual
"Diversity Week," taught the student body that the Bible condones and
blesses homosexual activity.







Honors student Betsy Hansen, now a college student, tried to speak up for
the orthodox Biblical position that homosexual behavior is, in fact, a sin.
She asked either to sit on the panel herself or to include on the panel a
Biblically faithful minister who would tell the truth. The school at first
agreed, but later reneged and conducted the program as planned.







For this, Detroit District Judge Gerald Rosen ordered the school district to
pay Betsy and her parents $102,738 in legal fees (the family sought no
punitive damages). Additionally, the school district spent $300,000 trying
to defend itself.







False Teachers



Who were the alleged "religious experts" on the panel, and where did they
come from?







They were two Episcopalian priests (a man and a woman), one Presbyterian
minister, a pastor from the United Church of Christ, a Jewish rabbi, and a
Presbyterian deacon.







The United Church of Christ is a denomination that offers seminary
scholarships to openly homosexual students and publishes books and pamphlets
proclaiming "the homoerotic content of the Gospels." It is one of the
fastest-shrinking denominations in the country.







Panel members were selected by the school's "Gay/Straight Alliance" from
"Pride Source," a homosexual resource directory that lists "gay-affirming
churches" in the Ann Arbor area.







"The panel members were held out as experts in matters of religion," Judge
Rosen wrote. "[The] approved viewpoint was ... presented to students as
religious doctrine by six clerics, some in full clerical garb." (For the
complete text of the judge's written opinion, 67 pages, see
www.thomasmore.org <http://www.thomasmore.org/> .)







Robert Muise, an attorney with the Thomas More Law Center, represented the
Hansen family.







"Those so-called experts sat up there and taught that translations of the
Bible weren't accurate, that passages like Romans 1 are not specifically
talking about homosexuality - the usual nonsense," Muise said.







The stated purpose of the panel, the judge said, was to affirm a supposed
"religious approval" of homosexuality.







Judge Rips School Officials



"Once schools get into the business of actively promoting one political or
religious viewpoint over another," the judge wrote, "there is no end to the
mischief that can be done in the name of good intentions."







Judge Rosen chastised school officials for intentionally violating Betsy
Hansen's First and Fourteenth Amendment rights (free speech, equal
protection). The school's argument he described as "transparently
disingenuous and offensive in its Procrustean attempt to torture the facts
....







"This case presents the ironic and unfortunate paradox of a public high
school celebrating 'diversity' by refusing to permit the presentation of an
'unwelcome' viewpoint on the topic of homosexuality and religion," he wrote.







School officials did not seek parental advice or consent, nor provide
information to parents about the form and content of the panel discussion.
When Betsy tried to submit a written statement for inclusion in the
discussion, the officials rejected it as "objectionable."







"For a young kid like that to stand up for her faith against the school
establishment - well, that's really admirable," Muise said.







"The judge tried the case as a free speech issue, not a religious one. He
said, '[T]he record is quite clear that the defendants' motivation was ...
to insure that only one viewpoint was presented by the panel.' That panel
was a bunch of wolves in sheep's clothing, preaching to a captive audience -
and the judge nailed the school for it."







Commentary



What we have in this case is false prophets bearing false witness against
the Word of God, aided and abetted by a major public school (2,700
students). Their purpose was to deceive teenagers about the content and
meaning of the Bible.







At risk here is the faith of untold numbers of "baby Christians" - the kind
of believer most vulnerable to being "bewitched" (Gal. 3:1) by false
teaching. It was these who worried St. Paul more than any others. Their
vulnerability should worry us, too.







It's for precisely this reason that the Bible exhorts us (Deut. 11:19-20) to
take responsibility for teaching our children. Clearly we can't leave it up
to public schools. Nor are all the churches to be trusted - especially those
listed in publications like "Pride Source."







Judge Rosen has punished Pioneer High School, but his ruling comes two years
after the damage was done. No matter how many lawsuits Christian plaintiffs
win, we'll always be several steps behind the offenders.







Teaching Christian children is the job of Christian parents, aided by the
Bible itself and by Biblically faithful churches - period.







________________________________







Lee Duigon is a Christian free-lance writer and contributing editor for the
Chalcedon Report. He has been a newspaper editor and reporter and a
published novelist.







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