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The California Supreme Court is letting stand a lower court ruling that allowed a private religious school to expel two girls for an alleged lesbian relationship. The state's highest court this week declined a request from the girls' attorney to review the case. The 4th District Court of Appeal in Riverside in January had upheld California Lutheran High School's right as a private, religious organization to exclude students based on their sexual orientation. The teens initially sued the Riverside County school in 2005 based on a state anti-discrimination law. Advocates for religious freedom called it the right decision but the...

SAN FRANCISCO -- The state Supreme Court left intact Wednesday a lower-court ruling that said a private religious high school wasn't covered by California civil rights law and could expel students it believed were lesbians. Over Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar's dissent, the court denied review of an appeal by parents of two girls who were expelled from a high school in Riverside County. A lawyer for the parents said the ruling, which is binding on trial courts statewide, would allow private schools to discriminate against students on any basis they chose, including sex and religion. The girls were juniors at...

The Roman Catholic Church has severely criticised a proposed new code of conduct for teachers which it says will force Christian schools to actively promote Islam and gay rights. The Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales has warned the General Teaching Council, by the professional regulatory body, that many teachers will quit the profession because they will not be able to accept the revised code of conduct in good conscience. Their advisers say the code would also seriously undermine the religious character of church schools by imposing on them a hostile form of secular morality. The legally-binding code would discriminate...

Catholic Church slams new code of conduct forcing teachers to promote Islam and gay rights By SIMON CALDWELL 02nd March 2009 Oona Stannard: 'It would not be possible for a person of faith to promote another faith ¿ this is a matter of conscience' The Roman Catholic Church has severely criticised a proposed new code of conduct for teachers which it says will force Christian schools to actively promote Islam and gay rights. The Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales has warned the General Teaching Council, by the professional regulatory body, that many teachers will quit the profession because they...

Kudos to Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, where it was recently announced that students will be allowed to use the university's off-campus firearm ranges to shoot. The two ranges, used primarily to train the university's police officers, will permit the use of rifles, shotguns, and handguns during designated shooting hours. "I am a firm believer in using all of the university's assets to benefit students and to enhance the student experience at LU," said Chancellor Jerry Falwell, Jr. "Recently, we have had students asking for a place to target shoot, so it made perfect sense to open the range to...

This just in from North Korea: Officials are concerned about two things – the health of Kim Jong Il and the 100-0 girls basketball game in Dallas. OK, dumb joke, but this is how crazy the story has become. As the dust finally settles (one hopes) around this story, there are vestiges of its singular strangeness that linger. ... ... But while the number 100 fanned the flames, the zero might have been the real fire starter. Covenant could have scored even more, but if Dallas Academy had been able to put up just a few buckets, there's no story....

A private religious high school can expel students it believes are lesbians because the school isn't covered by California civil rights laws, a state appeals court has ruled. Relying on a 1998 state Supreme Court ruling that allowed the Boy Scouts to exclude gays and atheists, the Fourth District Court of Appeal in San Bernardino said California Lutheran High School is a social organization entitled to follow its own principles, not a business subject to state anti-discrimination laws. "The whole purpose of sending one's child to a religious school is to ensure that he or she learns even secular subjects...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- A California appeals court has ruled that a Christian high school can expel students because of an alleged lesbian relationship. The 4th District Court of Appeal in Riverside on Monday upheld California Lutheran High School's right as a private, religious organization to exclude students based on sexual orientation. Two girls sued claiming they were discriminated against after they were expelled from the Wildomar school in 2005. A lower court said the school isn't bound by the same anti-discrimination laws as a business establishment. John McKay, attorney for California Lutheran, says the school's goal is to educate based...

DALLAS (CBS) ― The coach of a Texas high school basketball team that beat another team 100-0 reportedly was fired Sunday, the same day he sent an e-mail to a newspaper stating he will not apologize "for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity" and posted a detailed explanation on a hoops Web site. The Covenant School girls basketball coach Coach Micah Grimes, along with girls from his team, released a statement on the website of the Flight Basketball Academy. Kyle Queal, the headmaster for Covenant School, said in The Dallas Morning News online edition that...

You've heard all about the disputes: "Silent Night" banned at the "holiday" program, artistic references to the Bible censored and faith-inclusive children's programs facing discrimination. Now some people are fed up with public school treatment of Christianity and have launched a campaign calling for a rescue of kids from government education programs – a "Call to Dunkirk."

Economy hitting small colleges hard, some to closeMonday, November 17, 2008 6:22 AM EST Associated Press For 15 years, Cascade College in Portland, Ore., struggled to find the fuels that any college needs: students to pay tuition and donors to help build an endowment. Then came the global economic meltdown, and suddenly that struggle became an impossibility. Late last month, the small Christian college with just 280 students and $4 million in debt announced it would have to shut down at the end of the current academic year. Colleges are remarkably resilient institutions. Princeton University’s Nassau Hall still bears the...

NPR.org, October 22, 2008 · The ferociously conservative Christian right may be an unfashionable bunch this political season, but when it comes to the notion of a need for change, there are no truer or more fervently motivated believers. In fact, the recently founded Patrick Henry College is churning out these family-values crusaders in force.Inspired by journalist Hanna Rosin's 2005 New Yorker article about Purcellville, Va.'s so-called "Harvard For Homeschoolers" (subsequently expanded in the book God's Harvard), photographer Jona Frank put aside her own lefty leanings and set out — with Right: Portraits from the Evangelical Ivy League — to...

A federal judge has ruled the University of California can deny course credit to Christian high school graduates who have been taught with textbooks that reject evolution and declare the Bible infallible, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.U.S. District Judge James Otero of Los Angeles ruled Friday that the school's review committees did not discriminate against Christians because of religious viewpoints when it denied credit to those taught with certain religious textbooks, but instead made a legitimate claim that the texts failed to teach critical thinking and omitted important science and history topics. Charles Robinson, the university's vice president for legal...

A federal judge says the University of California can deny course credit to applicants from Christian high schools whose textbooks declare the Bible infallible and reject evolution. Rejecting claims of religious discrimination and stifling of free expression, U.S. District Judge James Otero of Los Angeles said UC's review committees cited legitimate reasons for rejecting the texts - not because they contained religious viewpoints, but because they omitted important topics in science and history and failed to teach critical thinking.

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge says the University of California can deny course credit to applicants from Christian high schools whose textbooks declare the Bible infallible and reject evolution. Rejecting claims of religious discrimination and stifling of free expression, U.S. District Judge James Otero of Los Angeles said UC's review committees cited legitimate reasons for rejecting the texts - not because they contained religious viewpoints, but because they omitted important topics in science and history and failed to teach critical thinking. Otero's ruling Friday, which focused on specific courses and texts, followed his decision in March that found no...

A federal court has ordered the state of Colorado to stop discriminating against students of a Christian college, a facility that state officials determined provided too much religion. The state for years has provided grants to students of secular institutions as well as students at a Methodist university and a Roman Catholic university, according to yesterday's opinion from the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. However, students at Colorado Christian University, a non-denominational evangelical Protestant university, were banned from the grant program after state officials decided the school was too pervasively sectarian. "We find the exclusion unconstitutional for two reasons:...

Arguments were heard today in a federal district court case to determine whether a state university system can dictate that private Christian schools in the state teach their college prep courses from exclusively secular, Bible- and God-free textbooks. As WND reported earlier, the University of California system adopted a policy last year that basic science, history, and literature textbooks by major Christian book publishers wouldn't qualify for core admissions requirements because of the inclusion of Christian perspectives. Robert Tyler, who is representing Calvary Chapel Christian School and five students in the case against the University of California, told WND that...

(snip) The largest Protestant denomination in America, the Southern Baptists, is sending representatives from thousands of churches to convene in Indianapolis for the 151st session of the Southern Baptist Convention on June 10 and 11. The church is in crisis. Outgoing president Rev. Frank Page estimates that only half of Southern Baptist churches will still exist two decades from now. The decline appears to be particularly acute among young people in the church. In 2005 alone, 55 percent of Southern Baptist churches baptized no youths, according to Ed Stetzer with the North American Mission Board. "They are discovering, as other...

Confronting a series of “New Atheists” books that have topped bestseller lists in the last two years, Dr. David Aikman, Associate Professor of History at Patrick Henry College, presented the College’s sixth Faith and Reason lecture Tuesday, February 19. As with the previous, twice-yearly lectures, covering themes from philosophy to classical education, the campus community gathered together for a day-long schedule of discussion groups, Q&A, and panel discussions. Dr. Aikman's new book, Delusion of Disbelief, is due for release in April.

A young Iraqi girl holds her new Beanie Baby, donated by children of North Hills Christian School in Salisbury, N.C. Soldiers of Company D, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, distributed the toys to children from the Oman and Nassir schools in al Buaytha, March 24. Photo by 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division Public Affairs. FOB KALSU — Iraqi school children in Al Buaytha received toys from children their age from halfway around the world, March 24. Soldiers of Company D, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry...