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Upon Further Review….

After reading Dan’s post below, and the article again. It does sound as if the school takes money directly from the state, rendering the public funding issue moot. And, Woodall does probably have a case if the school did not make the policy known up-front. The exclusion based on religion thing is a bit tricky. Yes, if you take public money you should not be allowed to discriminate on the basis of what could be called extraneous factors. Does that mean you can’t have a theology requirement? Or a weekly chapel service? What about prayer? I know that’s a slippery slope, and I’m in no way trying to argue that a ruling in favor of the boy and his mother on the basis that the policy was implicit rather than explicit will raise these sorts of issues; but the question of just how far a private school must go in order to receive vouchers is bound to come up as these sorts of programs [rightly] become more prevalent.

To answer Dan’s question: Because religion can be a powerful motivator. The lad may have felt a pull toward a religious environment, where he was among people who held at least similar views about those sorts of things. He may not have known about being expelled for being gay, and he may not have known about (or there might not have been) any general anti-gay sentiment on the campus. He also, apparently, enrolled in the school long before he realized he was gay. Things happen. Would I have picked it? No. Can I understand why he might have? Certainly.

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