Some of my loyal readers caught my on-air time yesterday when Mike Pintak of KDKA radio was interviewing me about a story from Massacheussetts. Seems a lesbian couple wanted to send their 8 year old son to a Catholic school. At first, the school accepted the boy, and then later rescinded the offer for enrollment.

Today, there was a follow up story on the Edge, a Boston based site:

The head of education for the Boston Archdiocese offered Thursday to help find a different Catholic school for a boy denied acceptance at a Hingham Catholic school because his parents are gay.

In a statement, superintendent Mary Grassa O’Neill said she spoke with a parent of the 8-year-old boy and “offered to help enroll her child in another Catholic school in the archdiocese.”

“We believe that every parent who wishes to send their child to a Catholic school should have the opportunity to pursue that dream,” O’Neill said.

On air, Pintak’s position seemed to be that a Catholic school should have the right to discriminate. My base point was that if they were going to discriminate based on the premise that gay parenting is in discord with Roman Catholic teaching, why are they not discriminating against children from divorced parents and especially parents who divorced and remarried?

But O’Neil  has a different take on things:

In her statement, O’Neill said the archdiocese doesn’t bar children of same-sex parents from attending Catholic schools, and that it will develop a policy in the coming weeks to make that clear. Terry Donilon, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said local pastors have autonomy to run their parishes within basic church rules, but the archdiocese can set new policy when something needs to be clarified – as in this case – and pastors are expected to follow it.

I am not Catholic and never went to a private school, but I have always had the idea that Catholic grade schools provided an excellent education. What I’m now not sure about is what is being taught there. Are they teaching Religion? Do they teach you how to be Catholic?

I’m of the personal belief that all Churches should be free to discriminate however they want to discriminate. We let Catholic Churches refuse to hire women as priests, right? I’m of the belief that churches can practice their faith however they see fit. But Education is different. Our schools need to be different. There must be a set standard for all Education that that must include the treatment of all students as equal, and welcome. That must include respect for difference and the celebration of diversity.

Note: Not all churches do discriminate. There are many individual congregations as well as denominations which actively welcome and celebrate diversity including the unconditional acceptance of gay lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.

Mass. church to help find school for gays’ son :: EDGE on the Net.