Missouri Christian school tells teachers to expel gay students or lose their jobs
A private Christian school in Missouri is telling teachers to expel any openly gay students, or risk losing their jobs.
Whitefield Academy, a K-12 school in Kansas City, Mo., has allegedly asked that teachers sign a letter supporting the decision to expel gay children.
According to The Pitch, those who refuse to sign the letter are “expected not to return” to their jobs in the fall. At least three teachers reportedly won’t be returning, after declining to sign.
Whitefield’s headmaster, Dr. Quentin Johnston, denied that the letter existed, telling The Pitch that the school asks “teachers and parents to understand and consent to the standards outlined in our Statement of Faith and core documents, which have not been altered in several years.”
The school’s Statement of Faith, provided to both staff and students, includes a series of paragraphs concerning “marriage, sexuality, and gender identity,” The Advocate reports.
Among its anti-LGBTQ statements, it rejects transgender people, arguing that God “wonderfully and immutably creates each person as male or female…. Rejection of one’s biological gender is a rejection of the image of God within that person.”
On same-sex marriage, the school handbook asserts that marriage “has only one meaning and that is marriage sanctioned by God, which joins one man and one woman in a single, exclusive union, as delineated in Scripture.”
Whitefield’s Statement of Faith then correlates LGBTQ people with incest, bestiality, and adultery, and calls them “offensive to God.”
“We believe that any form of sexual immorality (including adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, pornography, and attempting to change one’s biological sex or otherwise acting upon any disagreement with one’s biological sex) or advocacy of sexual immorality, is sinful and is therefore offensive to God,” it states.
Related: Christian principal expels gay student, says ‘Jesus would want me to’
In a letter sent to parents after The Pitch first reported about the ultimatum given to Whitefield’s teachers, the school again denied that it had required its staff to expel gay students or leave their jobs.
“To be clear, we have not asked our teachers to sign a statement such as described in the news story,” the letter said. “As in prior years, teachers have been asked to affirm their personal belief and agreement with our statement of faith and core documents.”
One parent, whose child attends the school, told The Pitch that the school hasn’t previously made its stance on gay students explicitly known, beyond having students attest to their faith when they enroll.
“It’s been unspoken I suppose up until now, and now they’re now they’re formalizing that in a way that makes me really uncomfortable,” the parent said. “We know the suicide rates for kids that are not in affirming families. And when I think about those same kids going to school and knowing that every adult in that school has signed a piece of paper saying they are not welcome there, it just hurts my heart to think about.”
Related:
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LGBTQ students at Christian colleges more likely to experience harassment than their peers
Gay professor sues Christian university for discrimination after being denied full-time position
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