Updated Saturday evening
The school is St Vincent’s Cathedral School in Bedford, Texas.
News reports:
Fort Worth Star-Telegram Bedford school turns away student because of parents’ lesbian relationship
See also, the letter to the editor (scroll down to Clarifying church ties) and there is also this.
Dallas Morning News Dallas-area school won’t take daughter of lesbian couple
CNN Texas school rejects 4-year-old over lesbian parents
Update
Episcopal Café Vincent’s dean defends rejection of student
The Very Rev. Ryan Reed, Dean of St. Vincent’s School, spoke with DallasVoice.com about the rejection of 4-year-old Olivia Harrison from his school because her parents are lesbian…
And so the campaign of the so-called “orthodox” to bring Anglicanism into disrepute continues!
St. Vincent’s, being a private school, can be as bigoted as they wish AFAIK…
But they have no right to use the word “Episcopal” in the name of their organization. They left TEC of their own accord, so it’s blatant false advertising (to say nothing of how their distasteful actions damages the reputation of real Episcopalians).
Fun fact: The (in)famous Fr. Ryan Reed, formerly of the Diocese of Fort Worth, is Dean of the school.
Didn’t someone once say “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God”?
The whole thing, I believe, is a result of the dishonest use of the name “Episcopal” by the ACNA/Southern Cone folks.
I can be quite demonstrative in my affirmation of GLBT equality, but … The school may, to some, be disingenuous (if I’m using the word correctly), but if we take them at their word, they are saying that the values they teach may make the child feel like an outsider, the values they teach are not in alignment with what the parents might want. So they told the parents the child is not accepted after all. They told the child’s parents they don’t believe in same-sex marriage. BUT, they then go on to suggest that there may be schools more… Read more »
Yes…because, being 4 years old already, she has probably already contracted lesbianism, which as everyone knows is highly infectious… at other schools, even accidental contact in the playground has led to whole families going down with lesbianism, and having to be put in quarantine… lesbianism is also, of course, the cause of the breakdown of marriage in our country and a major reason for the increase of divorce between heterosexual couples… however, rumours that more 4 year olds may be kept away from school, in case other families contract ‘divorce’, ‘greed’, ‘lustful looking at a woman’, or ‘failure to love… Read more »
If in fact, this school continues to use the word “Episcopal” in their official advertising, then I believe the Episcopal Church can in fact, sue them for copyright infringement. It will actually be necessary to do so because the damage done to the name “Episcopal” is measurable. I do agree that the parents could have researched this school before they submitted an application for their child, but this too is understandable because if the school used the word “Episcopal” it would be easy to understand why the lesbian parents would want their child to attend in view of the inclusive… Read more »
peterpi ‘but if we take them at their word, they are saying that the values they teach may make the child feel like an outsider, the values they teach are not in alignment with what the parents might want’. There were somewhat similar, and equally specious, arguments advanced in the Relate case, where it was suggested that surely gay couples would not want to visit a sexual therapy counsellor who personally believed that all gay couples would go to hell. Those arguments were rejected in the Court of Appeal, by Lord Justice Laws, who also rejected Carey’s witness statement proposals.… Read more »
I don’t think the issue is whether or not the school was legally justified to deny admission or whether it would have been a good school for the little girl. The issues, I think, are A. The Southern Cone/ACNA “Diocese of Fort Worth” is still using the name “Episcopal,” and doesn’t really make its position in the Anglican Communion clear (or rather, it’s lack of position in the WWAC) on its web page. They seem to be doing this as part of their ongoing struggle to keep hold of Episcopal assets. B. The school waited a long time before rejecting… Read more »
Why would you take so-called “orthodox anglicans” at their word?!
Has ten years taught no one *anything*?
You know, there’s the benefit of the doubt and then there’s just plain fooling yourself.
But the Archbishop of Canterbury has just given the ACNA de facto Anglican status by attending a gathering where Archbishop Duncan has been accorded primatial status and the liberal agenda denounced.
This whole sad situation demonstrates the inability of the ACNA people to distinguish between their own anti-gay agenda and the impropriety of their own desire to still be associated with the Anglican Church. They will have to come to terms with the fact that, in America and Canada, they DO NOT represent the Anglican Church – no matter how they cling to their adoption by the Global South. If there comes a definite split between Global South ‘Anglicanism’ (of which ACNA is now a part) and the ACO (of which TEC and the A.C.of C. are a part); then the… Read more »
There were two cases of Roman Catholic schools rejecting the children of gay families (or “households” as Vincent Nichols prefers to call us) earlier this year.
This is a reasonable report that covers both of these and discusses other situations dating back 5 years here:
http://smurl.name/jt62
Episcopal is a term that cannot be monopolised. Maybe “Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA” would be limited and exclusive to TEC, but not episcopal.
As for the whole affair. its a obviously a set up. I can’t see how any ” gay family” would really want their children educated in such an environment.
Sometimes you liberals can be really petty.
“As for the whole affair. its a obviously a set up. I can’t see how any ” gay family” would really want their children educated in such an environment.”
Well, Robert, they didn’t know that the church school was so hateful. After all, it said “Episcopal” on the sign, not “Roman Catholic.”
And Robert, if we can’t claim “Episcopal,” then you shouldn’t be able to claim “Catholic.” Turn about fair play.
You are incorrect Robert Ian Williams. The Episcopal Church in America has EVERY legitimate claim to the word “Episcopal” when it comes to copyright infringement. Once again, you make claims that are fallacious on topics of which you know nothing. Your pettiness is well documented in the many posts you have written in these threads. It is laughable that you call liberals petty when you hold the record for hypocrisy and judgement of others.
“Sometimes you liberals can be really petty.”
Yeah! You stinkin’ liberals!
Petty, that’s what you are – like when you go on to a blog with a view that’s predominantly opposed to you in a completely different denomination and make pompous proclamations about the infallibility of the Archbishop of Canterbury or chortle about the decline in attendance of the Roman Catholic denomination or declare how Catholics complaining about unjust criticism of their child abuse scandals is petty!
Oh. . . . wait.
That wasn’t *you* was it, liberals?
They might be able to claim “episcopal” as descriptor with small “e.”
However, the claim that we have a copyright has to be careful of the fact that there is, for example, such a thing as an “African Methodist Episcopal” denomination, and A. M. E. has been around a very long time, and, certainly here in the South, is no storefront, have-to-travel-sixty-miles-to-find-one tiny denomination.
The copyright infringement would be in the fraudulent use of the word Episcopal to denote the denomination to which they belong as being part of TEC.
“Episcopal is a term that cannot be monopolised.” Like “Catholic”, to be sure.
“You are incorrect Robert Ian Williams. The Episcopal Church in America has EVERY legitimate claim to the word “Episcopal” when it comes to copyright infringement. “
Of course that is not a trademarked term. In the United States there are actual denominations called “The United Episcopal Church, The Reformed Episcopal Church, and a couple of others. Episcopal means governed by Bishops. It’s also used in old Methodist churches.
“In the United States there are actual denominations called “The United Episcopal Church, The Reformed Episcopal Church, and a couple of others. Episcopal means governed by Bishops. It’s also used in old Methodist churches.”
But not, significantly, the unmodified adjective “Episcopal.” And no one disputes those bodies’ right to use “Episcopal” as part of their name.
Certainly there are plenty of churches with the name “Episcopal” but it seems unfair to assume that the mothers in question were up to speed on our own internal church dramas. They have said they simply took the school’s nomenclature at its word and we ought to take them at theirs. It’s not unreasonable not to expect such a problem with admissions in an Episcopal school. Even knowing the school’s affiliation, I had no idea that ACNA considers it a sin to be the child of same-gender parents. I would think such a draconian stance beyond even RIW’s own communion.
“I would think such a draconian stance beyond even RIW’s own communion.”
Alas, no. It’s happened in the States at least once:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/22769137/detail.html
Common sense plus a rather plain reading of the New Testament quickly show us that this is all nonsense, flat earth stuff played up to the point of crisis by people who cannot believe that little or nothing of the traditional claims about lesbians as mothers are empirically accurate. But of course nobody at this self-anointed academic outfit can be bothered to read the published science. The church leaders who so pride themselves on being unable to read the long-since-published science do not deserve our time and attention on these matters in which their doctrines are so far mistaken for… Read more »
Bill, thank God one of us has a mastery of the English language. That was what I was *trying* to say.
I have *got* to stop reading that Williams person’s speeches! Or should I say I have to stop failing to not try to stop reading them, or perhaps otherwise?
If I remember correctly, St. Vincent’s kept the “Episcopal” in its name, because focus groups in Texas associate “Episcopal” schools with high academic quality. Apparently, parents also associate it with tolerance, too.
Caelius, that may be. But the schismatics have been careful to keep Episcopal as their name in other contexts, and I have to think that it’s related to their attempts to retain control of diocesan assets. If you go to their web page, you’ll see that they even continue to use the seal of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, as well as the name.
http://fwepiscopal.org
“If you go to their web page, you’ll see that they even continue to use the seal of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, as well as the name.”
Well, that ought to get them sued under federal law. Even if the diocese never registered the seal as a trademark or service mark, most courts would consider it one under common law, and infringing on a common law trademark carries the same civil penalties as infringing on a registered one.