You are here: Home » Featured » Texas Anglican School Dithers Before Rejecting Child Of Lesbian Couple

Texas Anglican School Dithers Before Rejecting Child Of Lesbian Couple

08/20/10-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Rather than deny a child’s application to their school because her parents are a married lesbian couple, a school in Texas decided to have a spot of sport with them by waiting until almost the beginning of the school year to deny the daughter of Jill and Tracy Harrison admittance into St. Vincent’s School. While the school is still billed as being Episcopal, they have broken with the Episcopal Church and now align themselves with the Anglican Church in North America. No word has come down if they now plan on breaking with the Anglican Church over their support of lesbian and gay clergy.

The couple enrolled their daughter Olivia in the school, and when filling out the application, they crossed out the word ‘father’ and replaced it with ‘mother’. They then put Tracy’s name on that line. Jill, who is Olivia’s biological mother, went on the premade line stating ‘mother’. Jill conceived Olivia via a sperm donor sometime after the couple were married in Canada in 2006.

They attended the school’s parent night on Tuesday, but were only informed a few days before the school year started that their daughter was denied specifically because Jill and Tracy are lesbians.

Jill stated “I am horribly disappointed. In fact, we are in the 21st century and we are still dealing with this issue. We should just move on. Denying my daughter education based on who I end up sleeping with at the end of the day makes me furious.”

Tracy said “It’s hard to believe that a place that’s supposed to take in and teach children about God and the basics of religion would actually discriminate against her because of who we are.”

The school’s website and handbook say nothing about discriminating against families that are headed by lesbians and gays. It does claim to be non-discriminatory as to race, color, religion, and national/ethnic origin. The school’s headmaster, Kenneth Monk, went on record saying “We are a church affiliated with the Anglican Church in North America, and it is their policy that we don’t provide services to individuals or families that do not behave properly. We’re going off our canons that say ‘The Anglican Church in North America affirms our Lord’s teaching that the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony is in its nature a union permanent and lifelong of one man and one woman.”

At least the school refunded the application fee of $100 and the Harrisons were able to find a non-religious school for Olivia to attend. They made sure that the school was same-sex accepting before enrolling her. What is unconscionable in this is that Monk and St. Vincent’s took this long to inform the Harrisons that there was a problem and reject their application. Instead, they chose to wait until it was almost too late to let the couple know.

Source