During her testimony on Capitol Hill last Wednesday, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was grilled by Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA) over voucher programs, federal funding and discrimination.
Clark referenced Bloomington’s Lighthouse Christian Academy as an example of a private school that receives more than $665,000 in state vouchers while actively discriminating against LGBT students, according to the Herald Times.
“The bottom line is we believe that parents are the best equipped to make choices for their children’s schooling and education decisions. Too many children are trapped in schools that don’t work for them,” DeVos responded.
By itself, I don’t disagree with her statement.
Parents of LGBT students are absolutely the best equipped to choose where their children attend school, which is why they should be able to send their children to Lighthouse Christian Academy if they so desire.
Children are absolutely trapped in schools that don’t work for them, which is why we should be pouring money into improving our public education system, instead of funding discriminatory practices by so-called Christians.
It’s obvious school choice isn’t actually about school choice. Otherwise, all students and their families would be given complete access to every option. The choices of some students, however, are limited by the policies of religious schools like Lighthouse Christian Academy.
But the issue of “school choice” is just a symptom of a broader disease. Actively discriminating against the LGBT community, in all forms, is killing the modern church.
With each new generation, an increasing number of people are religiously unaffiliated. A 2015 survey published by Pew Research Center found that 36 percent of young millennials have no religious propensity.
A study conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute in 2014 found that nearly one-third of millennials who left the faith they grew up with did so because of “negative teachings” or “negative treatment” surrounding LGBT people.
And finally, in a 2015 YouGov survey, nearly one-third of millennials identified as something other than “completely heterosexual.” In fact, when asked if it was conceivable that they “could be attracted to a person of the same sex,” only 49 percent of millennials said “absolutely not.”
Meanwhile, under the “Biblical Lifestyle” section of the admissions brochure for the Academy, which designates a set of biblically forbidden behaviors as grounds for rejection from the school, they justify prohibiting those who practice an “alternate gender identity” with Deuteronomy 22:5, a verse that simply says, “A woman must not wear men’s clothing.”
This is, of course, preposterous because my cisgender fiancée wears my shirts and sweatshirts all the time, but I doubt that’d be grounds for rejection.
Nevertheless, I imagine Lighthouse Christian Academy will remain indignant about the matter, citing misused scripture and quoting the tired cliché, “We are in the world, but not of the world.” They’ll say the Lord’s commands don’t depend on cultural trends.
And they may not, but we certainly do.
It was only in 1970 that the Supreme Court had to forbid private Christian colleges from discriminating against African-Americans in Green v. Kennedy. Not more than 50 years ago, scripture was being used to justify racial educational segregation.
Today, it’s being used against our LGBT friends.
Unless they want to continue pushing people away in droves, Christian churches and institutions, like the Lighthouse Christian Academy, must correct these toxic, harmful and inaccurate Biblical interpretations.
