Associated Press and Daily Mail: Second Lady Karen Pence started a new job this week – teaching art to elementary students at a religious school that bans homosexuals and transgender children.
Pence, Vice President Mike Pence’s wife, began teaching art on Tuesday to children enrolled at Immanuel Christian School in Northern Virginia. Mrs. Pence accepted the job in December and was to have rebooted her teaching career on Monday. But classes were canceled after a heavy weekend snowfall across the Washington region. Her office says she’ll teach twice a week until May.
Mrs. Pence was a teacher for 25 years, including 12 teaching art at Immanuel Christian School, before then-U.S. Rep. Mike Pence was elected Indiana’s governor. Charlotte Pence, the couple’s daughter, attended the school, according to its web site…
This latest move is likely to generate controversy given that the school refuses admission to students who either participate or condone homosexual activity, according to Huffington Post.
The school even posted a ‘parent agreement’ online which states that it ‘reserves the right, within its sole discretion, to refuse admission to an applicant or to discontinue enrollment of a student if the atmosphere or conduct within a particular home, the activities of a parent or guardian, or the activities of students are counter to… the biblical lifestyle the school teaches.’
The agreement continues: ‘This includes, but is not limited to contumacious behavior, divisive conduct, and participating in, supporting, or condoning sexual immorality, homosexual activity or bi-sexual activity, promoting such practices, or being unable to support the moral principles of the school.’
The school also binds prospective employees. Anyone filling out a job application at the school are required to sign a pledge not to participate in homosexual activity or acts that are contrary to the ‘unique roles of male and female.’
‘Moral misconduct which violates the bona fide occupational qualifications for employees includes, but is not limited to, such behaviors as the following: heterosexual activity outside of marriage (e.g., premarital sex, cohabitation, extramarital sex), homosexual or lesbian sexual activity, polygamy, transgender identity, any other violation of the unique roles of male and female, sexual harassment, use or viewing of pornographic material or websites,’ says the application.
In the application, the school states its belief that ‘marriage unites one man and one woman’ and that ‘a wife is commanded to submit to her husband as the church submits to Christ.’
A spokesperson for Karen Pence defended the Second Lady’s decision to return to her former employer.
‘It’s absurd that her decision to teach art to children at a Christian school, and the school’s religious beliefs, are under attack,’ the spokesperson, Kara Brooks, said.
Virginia is a state with laws that are relatively conservative when it comes to protections for LGBTQ employees against discrimination. In fact, it is legal for a private employer in Virginia to discriminate against individuals on the basis of orientation and gender identity.
‘I am excited to be back in the classroom and doing what I love to do,’ Karen Pence said in a statement to USA Today. ‘I have missed teaching art.’
Human Rights Campaign, one of the most prominent civil rights groups advocating on behalf of LGBTQ Americans, condemned the Second Lady’s decision to return to the school.
‘Why not teach at a school that welcomes everyone, instead of choosing one that won’t serve LGBTQ kids, kids of LGBTQ parents?’ said JoDee Winterhof, HRC’s Senior Vice President for Policy and Political Affairs.
‘The Pences never seem to miss an opportunity to show their public service only extends to some.’
Before he became Vice President, Mike Pence was known as one of the country’s most conservative politicians.
During his time in Congress, Pence warned that allowing gays to marry would bring about ‘societal collapse,’ according to Mic. When Pence ran for Congress for the first time, he suggested that federal funds used to advance research on HIV and AIDS instead be diverted to ‘provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.’
Our comment:
Public legal support for same-sex marriage and other recognition has emboldened its advocates who want to go beyond toleration of their lifestyle and pressure, through shame, legal assaults and other methods, all Christians to set aside their biblical beliefs. The modern LGBTQ+ movement, supported and promoted by the left, has increasingly isolated and marginalized Christians.
Prophetic Link:
“Likewise also, as it was in the days of Lot…” Luke 17:28.
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