When I wrote shared the story of a lesbian mom kicked out of the PTA for campaigning against Prop 8 this week, the last people I wanted to offend were Robin McGehee and her family. They are, after all, the victims here - not only of discrimination from the school and the Roman Catholic church as a whole but the entire State of California.
When Robin McGehee's wife, Kathy Adams, responded to the story here on Strollerderby, her words struck at the core of intolerance - what it does to the family, or, in this case, a little boy whose mom says "only wants to see his friends."
Adams shared more of the story behind the church's decision to make her wife their sacrificial lamb. Their little boy, Sebastian, had been enrolled there since pre-K because the public school program in that part of California does not offer pre-K. That Sebastian's birth father is Catholic and the family had a number of connections to staff and other parents at the school all played a role in their choice (as it would in any parents' decision regarding their child's education). They were depending, she said, on a belief that the people at St. Helen's "tried to enact general principles of faith that honors the dignity of all human beings."
Unfortunately, these people didn't try hard enough. McGehee was informed she was a face for St. Helen's as PTA president and her public face as a gay rights advocate put her in a conflict with the church's teachings. The family removed Sebastian from the school that very day, Adams said. Now their little boy mourns for the life he enjoyed with his friends at a school where his teachers were loving, caring individuals, where his recent participation in a walk-a-thon garnered the school more than $1,000 in donations.
Already saddened and disgusted by the church's actions, the details Adams layed out make it that much more difficult to fathom the possibility of one day sending my daughter to Catholic school. It was a question I asked this week - how does one send their child to a school where the teachings are in direct opposition to the family's basic values?
In Adams' and McGehee's case, it was what they saw as their best option. As Adams says, "Parents are often faced with choices that are far from perfect."
She's too right. Public schools in some areas are atrocious. In my rural area, the public school system has been on a rollercoaster ride quite literally since a few days after I graduated when my school was dissolved and merged with two other districts. Private school pickins' in a rural area are slim. A Montessori school with steep tuition is at least 45 minutes from my home on a clear day; the ride lengthens significantly in inclement weather. Living in the northeast, inclement weather is a factor during a large chunk of the school year. Homeschooling is not an option; in part because I don't feel confident in my own abilities to teach but even more so because of the work responsibilities of both myself and my husband. So what's left? A fundamentalist Christian school that churns out kids who head off to colleges headed by Falwell and Robertson. No. No. No.
So we're back to the Catholic school. I was raised Catholic. When I walk into a church, the scent of incense and flickering candles beckon like Grandma's kitchen on a cold winter afternoon. There is comfort in the church, comfort in the familiar. Yet I attend Mass only as an Easter and Christmas Catholic. I refuse to attend in January, when I know they'll be shaking the collection box for the trip to Washington, D.C. for the March for Life. I refuse to put my daughter into a Sunday School where she will be directed - as I was - to copy a form letter in my own child's penmanship to be sent off to my Congressman, begging for the reversal of Roe v. Wade. I refuse to allow my daughter to be instructed that her gay uncles are sinners, that their love for each other is any less powerful than the bond between myself and my husband.Yet, I appreciate the values of "thou shalt not kill," "thou shalt not steal," "the merciful shall obtain mercy." They're values I share with the church, values I want to share with my daughter.
The local Catholic school is akin to many across the country, willing to look the other way when families who skip Mass sign the tuition checks. The school has allowed actors from shows like the Sopranos to act as very public fundraisers - the very non-Catholic values of a HBO show full of killing, cursing mobsters be darned. It is a school first, a religious organization second. And it's schooling I want for my daughter, after all, an education.
So I feel for McGehee and Adams. They only want what's best for their little boy. Can they find it in our world?
Click here to read Adams' entire story and the original post
Image: St Helens School
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