Lesbian Student Chucked from Christian School

A lesbian high school student was "encouraged" in no uncertain terms to leave the Christian where she had excelled academically and athletically, according to a Sept. 8 article in the Hartford Courant.

The student, Rachel Aviles, attended The Master's School, in West Simsbury, Conn., which teaches students from kindergarten through high school. But not, evidently, if the school's administrators discover that a student is gay or lesbian.

"This was to be her senior year and a former coach says she would have been up for all kinds of awards," the Courant article read. "But last spring she went on a class trip where several students, Aviles among them, pretended to be married. They made 'wifey' phone calls to one another. They held hands -- not unusual among same-sex friends at Master's, Aviles said."

The article went on to say that when the school's administration got wind of the game, they launched an inquisition. The students were questioned about their sexual orientations. Aviles happened to be a lesbian -- and she told her interrogators so.

"Her friends knew," the article said. "Teachers didn't."

When they found out, that was the end of a star pupil's career at a school that seemed not to care for her potential or her accomplishments -- only her status as a sexual minority. Aviles heard from the school's administration that she ought to leave of her own accord, rather than be expelled.

"It was a not thinly veiled threat," one longstanding acquaintance of the young woman told the Courant.

Coach Heather Lodovico described how she found out, via text message, that one of her top athletes would not be back.

"She texted me and said something like 'They kicked me out,' and I made a joke, 'What, are you pregnant?' and she said, 'No, worse. I'm gay,' " Lodovico told the Courant.

"My reaction was: 'Wow. Your God's really small,' " Lodovico, who has left the school and now lives in Florida, continued. "Whether it's a sin or not, take that out of the picture, and this is still wrong. I think God's up there shaking His head going, 'Really? Really?' "

Lodovico, like Aviles' other teachers, didn't know that Aviles was a lesbian. But neither did she anticipate that a gay student would be treated in such a manner.

"One of the things they pride themselves on is they let kids be unique and express themselves," Lodovico said of the school.

But as applied, that philosophy might seem only to extend only to straight students -- and students who understand the kind of faith-based discrimination that finds a leading member of the student body asked to withdraw simply because of who she is.

Aviles was not a Christian, the article noted, even though she had attended a Christian school. The administration seemed not to mind that the young woman did not share their faith. Lodovico said that it should have been made clear from the outset that the faith tradition the school represents would not accept gays and lesbians in its midst -- something that Aviles may not have understood.

What she did seem to understand, the article said, was the Christian concept of forgiveness.

"Just because you've been wronged doesn't mean you have the right to wrong back," Aviles told the Courant.

The article noted that religious schools are not as strictly bound as public schools by non-discrimination laws.

The columnist who wrote the article, Susan Campbell, went on to post a Sept. 9 blog item about the response that her column on Aviles had generated.

"After the column ran, there were -- as there always are -- the scattered few angry emails," Campbell wrote. "I've come to expect them and I do not lose sleep over them.

"What I didn't expect was the amount of support," Campbell added. "I couldn't keep up with the emails from people who wanted to tell Rachel to keep on keeping on. People from around the country as well as Canada and Ireland wrote to tell her that she is an inspiration. I heard from ministers, mothers, gay, lesbian, straight adults who wanted Rachel to know that she is not alone."

While Aviles has gained admirers around the world, the global gay press has played a part in getting her story out. British LGBT site Pink News reported on Aviles on Sept. 9.

Stateside, the gay press has also been active in relaying word of the student's exclusion from the school, with Jezebel.com reporting on the story on Sept. 8 and Advocate.com reporting on the story on the same day.

The Advocate story began with the words, "Honesty is a virtue. Unless you're a lesbian student at The Master's School, a K-12 Christian school in West Simsbury, Conn."

As of Sept. 9, text at the school's website still included mention of Aviles in the "Student Stories" section.

"Rachel has been part of The Master's School since her freshman year," the text read, going on to say, "She is an avid advocate for women's sports and for the junior class. Since her arrival she has annually played on the volleyball, the basketball and the Lacrosse teams. She has served as the Junior Varsity captain of the volleyball team during her freshman and sophomore years and the captain of the basketball team during her sophomore and junior years. She has assisted the admissions department by serving as a student ambassador and as the speaker for the 2010 golf outing fundraising event. She has also been elected to be a member of Student Life, our student government.

"Rachel sees TMS as a community where she has the opportunity to grow in maturity, to learn how to think out of the box and to really think about what she believes," the text continued.

The story prompted a petition at social justice site Change.org.

"No student should ever be kicked out of a school because of their sexual orientation or gender identity," the petition's accompanying text read. "The Master's School should immediately pass a non-discrimination policy that includes sexual orientation and gender identity, so this never happens again."

Commentators left text at the site decrying the school's stance toward LGBT youth. One comment purported to be from a descendant of the family that established the school.

"My grandparents founded the Masters school," the posting read. "My mother and uncles are first generation alums. I am an alum of the class of 2010. This is unacceptable and its [sic] not the school my family built!"

Another posting read, "I'm a Master's alum, and I know the parties involved. No one should be discriminated against for ANY reason. It's even more appalling coming from a Christian school, this is not Christ-like in any manner or form."