Some parents at St. John the Baptist School in Costa Mesa, California are upset that the school has enrolled two boys in kindergarten whose parents are homosexual men; they want the school to expel the students.
Catholic League president William Donohue spoke to this issue today:
“There are two issues here—one is a matter of principal and the other is a matter of prudence. There is a moral principle, expressed in Judeo-Christian thought, that the innocent should not be punished for the transgressions of the guilty. To be more specific, the prophet Ezekiel taught that it was wrong for children to suffer for the sins of their father. Applied in this instance, we can amend that to ‘fathers.’
“On a prudential level, it makes no sense to single out kids for retribution whose parents are gay. What should be done about kids who were born out-of-wedlock? What about those kids who have a father or a mother who is the town philanderer? Should we expel kids whose parents are cohabiting? Or are known adulterers?
“There is no fundamental tension between opposing gay marriage as a matter of public policy and accepting the children of gay parents in a Catholic school. Unfortunately, there are some who are so exercised about the former that it has clouded their vision about the latter.
“While this issue may be new, the core of the matter is not: priests have often been asked by morally delinquent parents to baptize their children, and in most instances the priests have rightfully obliged. Now just as the priest is in no way condoning the moral delinquency of the parents, school officials at St. John the Baptist are in no way condoning the lifestyle of the gay parents. And in both cases, the spiritual well-being of the kids is, or should be, the paramount concern.”
