In 2014 the Obama Administration signed an executive order mandating that contractors with the federal government could not discriminate in their hiring based on LGBTQ criteria. Gordon College in South Hamilton, MA., had a Statement of Life and Conduct that prohibited sex outside marriage and defined marriage as being between a man and a woman. This statement applied to students and staff, putting the school at odds with the executive order. Gordon College appealed the order and requested the administration exclude religious organizations from that ruling. Soon after making the request, the school began to experience harassment. To be succinct, the government attempted to force Christian colleges to abandon their beliefs regarding sexuality.
A few days later, Salem, Mass., revoked Gordon’s privilege of using Salem’s historic Old Town Hall. They cited the school’s “hurtful and offensive” advocacy for “discrimination against the LGBT community.” The following month Lynn, an adjoining city, refused to accept Gordon College students into its student-teacher program. Finally, in August, Gordon College’s accrediting agency, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), threatened to remove the school’s accreditation due to Gordon College’s discriminatory policies. This was concerning as the school did not discriminate based on race or sex. But as a Christian school, they could not endorse a gay lifestyle or the LGBTQ+ agenda. The school did weather the crisis, but the problem would not disappear.
Fast forward to 2023. In Arizona, the Washington Elementary School District school board met. Of the five members, three are members of the LGBTQ community. Tamillia Valenzuela, a committee member who identifies as “a bilingual, disabled, neurodivergent, queer, black Latina,” stated that she had concerns with the renewal of Arizona Christian University’s contract for student teachers. The school has had an agreement with the school district for eleven years and has no complaints. Valenzuela noted that the university’s mission was to influence, engage, and transform the culture with truth by promoting the biblically informed values foundational to western civilization. She stated that those biblical values include a biblical understanding of gender and sex, and marriage. She said, “At some point, we need to get real with ourselves and look at whom we are making legal contracts with and the message it sends to our community because that makes me feel like I could not be safe in this school district and it makes queer kids who are already facing attack from our lawmakers feel that they could not be safe in this community.”
Following a unanimous vote, the college was decertified, and its students can no longer student teach in any of the thirty-two schools. A columnist, Laurie Roberts, noted, “It seems the university’s budding educators are simply too Christian to be allowed to teach in the district’s 32 schools.”
The argument against the college is not valid. These student teachers are not teaching LGBTQ topics, and there does not have to be any conflict. In a public school setting, a teacher can teach students to read or write without discussing sexuality. This raises an interesting point: why must everyone the students meet be part of the LGBTQ movement? The result of that thought pattern is that all students are forced to participate in an LGBTQ environment on behalf of a tiny minority of students. Overall, the emphasis on LGBTQ identity does not contribute to the student’s education.
Contrary to current trends, it is not necessary for elementary or secondary school students to know about their teacher’s sexuality or to build lesson plans around sexuality. This is not an issue of educational significance. It is an ideological issue that has no place in public schooling.
The school board argued that this is not religious discrimination but an action limited to Christian organizations which are not LGBTQ allies. That is untrue; it is religious discrimination. The orthodox church never has and can never support LGBTQ causes. An ideological effort to disenfranchise Christians who hold conservative biblical beliefs is religious discrimination. It is part of a pattern of behavior coercing people of faith to abandon their beliefs or find themselves unemployable. Teachers known to be evangelicals would likely have difficulty finding employment or acceptance in this school district. As one might expect, a lawsuit has been filed due to this ideological overreach.
What can we do? We can elect better school board members. But, even if we do, we can expect more of the same. Orthodox Biblical Christianity is locked in a struggle with liberal progressivism, and the battle has several fronts. Certainly, we should promote homeschooling and Christian schooling. This is a difficult period, and, in some cases, it is possible that Christians will not be hired or will be fired. But even if that is the case, we need to be faithful. As Arizona Christian Universities’ web page states, “the university’s mission is to influence, engage, and transform the culture with truth by promoting the biblically informed values foundational to western civilization.” That sounds like good advice.
Leave a comment