Kylie Lang: Out-of-touch schools shouldn’t ban kids for being gay or having sex

The church affiliated with Queensland’s most elite schools must read the room and stop denying kids leadership positions because of their identity, writes Kylie Lang.

Schools should stick to their core business of education instead of discriminating against children who are gay or, in circumstances deemed equally heinous, having heterosexual intercourse before marriage.

But the woefully out-of-touch Presbyterian Church Australia – whose website links it to the Presbyterian and Methodist Schools Association (PMSA) which runs four very expensive schools in Queensland – wants to deny these kids leadership opportunities.

Imagine the “evil” these children might spread or encourage if they were to be school captains or house captains of Brisbane Boys’ College, Somerville House, Clayfield College or Sunshine Coast Grammar School.

The official church line – in a submission to the Australian Law Reform Commission about federal religious discrimination laws – is that these particular students would “not be able to give appropriate Christian leadership in a Christian school which requires modelling of Christian living”.

What year are we living in? The Presbyterians might like to acknowledge a little postal survey in 2016 which showed most Australians were supportive of same-sex marriage.

Presbyterian and Methodist Schools Association manages Somerville House, Brisbane Boys’ College Clayfield College and Sunshine Coast Grammar School.

Laws were changed to remove discrimination. Read the room, people.

And here’s another question regarding the sidelining of children who don’t fit the Presbyterian bill – what would Jesus do?

Would Jesus cast them aside, as if they were lepers?

One Somerville House parent told me he was “disgusted” by the move.

“The church should not be standing judgment over modern teenagers – that is very dangerous – it should be focusing on their ATARS.

“The church has lost sight of where Australia is a society.”

You might recall a similar furore concerning Citipointe Christian College in Carindale. In January last year it updated its enrolment contract, asking families to agree their children would identify as their birth gender or face being excluded from the school.

The amendment was subsequently scrapped within a week of it making headlines – and the principal quit.

The bottom line is schools exist to educate, not discriminate.

Parents are paying for their children to be given opportunities – not to have opportunities taken away.

And as anyone who’s raised a teenager knows, adolescence is tough enough without kids being made to feel that they are inadequate or somehow defective.

Leadership positions should be within the reach of every student. End of story.