School dismisses student with gay parents
ABCNews. com reports a Catholic school in Colorado is kicking out a preschooler and a sibling in kindergarten because the children’s parents are lesbians. The children also will not be allowed to re-enroll next year at Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic School. The Denver Archdiocese posted a statement March 5 saying the parents are “living in open discord with Catholic teaching.” The statement said students in Catholic schools are expected to have parents who abide by church and school policies. The archdiocese said students with gay parents in Catholic schools would be confused. No tax credit for shows with gays The Palm Beach Post reports movie and TV productions with gay characters could be ineligible for a tax credit being considered in the state House. Current state law grants tax credits on “family-friendly” productions with no smoking, sex, nudity or profane language. The proposal by Republican Rep. Stephen Precourt of Orlando would increase the credit and expand the field of disqualified productions as those that include any “exhibit or implied act” of nontraditional family values and gratuitous violence. Precourt says he’s not targeting the gay community, but that shows with gay characters would not be something he’d want “to invest public dollars in.” Florida Together head Ted Howard said, “Instituting 1950s-style movie censorship does nothing to support real-life families.” Va. AG: Colleges can’t ban discrimination Yahoo News reports Virginia’s attorney general has advised the state’s public colleges that they don’t have the authority to ban sexual-orientation discrimination. The letter sent by Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli to state college presidents and other officials March 4 drew swift criticism from Democrats and gay-rights activists. “It is my advice that the law and public policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia prohibit a college or university from including ‘sexual orientation,’ ‘gender identity,’ ‘gender expression’ or like classification, as a protected class within its nondiscrimination policy, absent specific authorization from the General Assembly,” Cuccinelli wrote. — Larry Nichols