Praying for the elimination of inflexibility

JOSEPH N. BELL

All of the Forum letters and Pilot editorial comment and news story

quotes I’ve seen have rightly taken strong issue with the 18 parents

who have demanded that Costa Mesa’s St. John the Baptist School

authorities kick out two kindergarten students because they are

adopted children of a gay couple whose lifestyle is a violation of

Catholic doctrine.

This demand is so clearly off-the-wall unfair to the children

involved -- a position Father Martin Benzoni, pastor of the Costa

Mesa church has taken -- that further comment seems almost

irrelevant. Yet, none of the critics of the complaining parents have

dealt with the root issue here: the inflexible position of the

Catholic Church in regarding homosexuality as a sin.

Both Benzoni and the complaining parents are caught between a rock

and a hard place. On the one hand, as an extension of its

condemnation of homosexuality, the church has outlawed both marriage

and adoption by same-sex couples. On the other hand, punishing the

children by denying them a Catholic education because of the alleged

sins of their loving and concerned adoptive parents would not, as

Benzoni said in a press statement, “show genuine care for the

salvation of all those involved.” In this dispute, the 18 complaining

parents have chosen to make Catholic doctrine their top priority.

And Benzoni has put showing “genuine care” for the children first.

Neither of them have questioned the bigger issue: whether the

Catholic Church, by denying entrance to their form of Christianity to

an entire segment of society based purely on sexual preference, is in

accord with the all-inclusive love of the ministry of Jesus.

I have two nieces, 5 and 8, the progeny of gay parents. I have

watched their arrival, growth and the sometimes discrimination

against their lesbian parents. They have no need for me to defend

them and their lifestyle. But when I project their two little girls

into the situation facing the children under dispute at St. John the

Baptist, it is hard to comprehend any church system or its followers

who would ignore their own un-Christian behavior while “casting

stones” at others whose lifestyles they fear.

It brings to mind another current local debate growing up around

the picture of a group of Newport Harbor High School football

players, apparently in a moment of prayer after a game, published

recently in the Pilot. Several strong letters questioning both the

propriety and legality of prayer at a public school function brought

robust rebuttals, and we were off and running.

What some of you may not have picked up on is a school prayer

dispute, now taking place at the University of Georgia, that has

escalated to the federal courts. There, a cheerleading coach named

Marilou Braswell was allegedly putting heavy pressure on students to

attend Bible study sessions at her home, conducted by her minister

husband. Braswell also led the group in prayer before they were about

to perform.

When an admittedly talented Jewish cheerleader named Jaclyn Steele

complained to Braswell about the pressure on her to participate in

the prayer sessions, she was busted down from the prestigious

football squad to the minor leagues of cheerleading. And when she

carried her complaints to school authorities, Braswell was ordered to

put Steele back on the varsity and to cut out religious activities in

connection with cheerleading. When Braswell then castigated both

Steele and the athletic department in a statement read to her team,

she was fired.

The federal judge who denied her appeal for reinstatement said

university professionals needed to be “very sensitive to the fact

that if they inject their religious beliefs into activities that

include students, that is going to be perceived as something that the

student participants would be expected to participate in.” Braswell

plans to sue the university.

I am not suggesting that this case parallels what happened at

Newport Harbor High. The prayer in the Pilot picture appeared to be

impulsive and shared willingly by the participants. But it also

pushed the edges of activities that don’t belong in the diverse

environment of public institutions and can lead to the sort of major

engagement now underway in Georgia.

I’m strongly partisan to individual prayer -- just you, whatever

God you turn to, and the environment in which you find yourself, be

it a battlefield, a football field, a hospital or a sylvan mountain

stream. That way, you can give the matter your full attention without

involving anyone else.

Group prayer, wherever it takes place, assumes that all the

participants are on the same page. That’s a much safer assumption at

home or in one’s church than it is at a public meeting or

institution. I was deeply involved in high school and college

athletics and don’t recall group prayer ever being a part of these

team activities. I think it would have startled most of the teammates

I remember.

If the situation at St. John the Baptist School inspires any

prayers, I would hope that they be directed toward the 18 complaining

parents. They need help a lot more than the kids they’re trying to

reject.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.