A reader points me to this article:A Catholic school in Oregon has refused admission to the daughter of a lesbian couple. The lesbians claim discrimination and have filed a complaint with the Eugene Human Rights Commission. (Why doesn’t it surprise me that Eugene has a human rights commission?)
The school says it does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national and ethnic origin.” Notice what’s not included in the list: religion or sexual orientation. That’s because those two criteria have a moral component with direct relation to our religious beliefs. If the school were forced to take the child of a lesbian couple, then the Catholic Church would be forced by the government to compromise its religious beliefs and that would be unconstitutional.
Inkmann, a 43-year-old business owner, said she has attended and paid dues at St. Mary’s since January after a long absence from the church.
The Catholic Church does not have “dues.” Dues are payments required for membership. The offertory at Mass is a free will offering presented to the parish for the general and specific needs of the parish and other charities so designated by the pastor. Use of the word “dues” brings to mind payment for services and a right to partake of those services, which Inkmann obviously thinks includes enrollment at the parish school.
“I feel called to respond to my parish and the local parish school because of my developed Catholicism,” she said. “I want my daughter to receive a Catholic education that will be in keeping with her teachings at home, and I want to become part of a Catholic community again like I was when I was a child.”
What exactly is “developed Catholicism”? I have a feeling that it’s a religion which has expunged all the inconvenient teachings with which Inkmann happens to disagree. And if she wants to be part of the Catholic community then she has to realize that you don’t have a right to inclusion, no matter what. It entails partaking in and professing the beliefs of the Catholic Church as safeguarded and promulgated by the Pope and bishops in union with him. It looks like, if she wants her daughter to receive an education in keeping with what she’s learning at home, she’d do best to find another school anyway. This one seems to be clearly orthodox and not likely to teach her the fiction that same-sex relationships are okay.
Of course, local laws forbid discrimination in public accommodation on sexual orientation. Now, most constitutional law agrees that religious groups are exempt from public accommodation definition, but that doesn’t stop the local branch of the ACLU from saying that the Catholic Church should be forced to include those who disagree with her teachings.
