Banning Catholic views from public schools akin to Nazism: federal judge

Nov 27, 2003 / 22:00 pm

An attorney from the Thomas More Law Center is optimistic that a ruling, expected  around Dec. 1, will be favorable to the rights of a Catholic, after a federal judge compared banning Catholic views to Nazism.

Attorney Robert Muise is representing former Pioneer High School student Elizabeth Hanson, who sued the school after it banned the Christian viewpoint on homosexuality during a “Diversity Week Forum”, organized by the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance.

Muise says it is not uncommon for such discrimination to take place in public schools. Increasingly, "we have schools that want to label Christian students' views toward homosexuality as hate speech. … [and] exclude it."

At a court hearing Nov. 24, U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen interrogated an attorney representing Pioneer High for two hours regarding the school's decision. He scolded school officials for refusing to let the students hear the viewpoint that homosexual behavior is incompatible with Scripture. The school's actions "smack of government and religious totalitarianism," he said.

The judge said only allowing pro-homosexual clergy to take part in the panel discussion on homosexuals and religion was equivalent to book burning in Nazi Germany back in the 1930s.

Muise feels the judge's interrogations and remarks point toward a favorable decision. "The judge here correctly showed that the ones that are intolerant are the school officials who won't allow this Christian message," he says.

The attorney says the court has made clear that this is a case of viewpoint discrimination, and what it will establish is that "the Christian view is worthy of being expressed in public, and in fact the Constitution requires it."