Louisiana school board president questions principal’s anti-lesbian ruling
Claudetteia Love
Monroe City School Board President Rodney McFarland said he has called a meeting with School Superintendent Brent Vidrine after Carroll High School Principal Patrick Taylor warned an openly lesbian student she would not be allowed to wear a tux to her prom.
According to the News Star, Carroll High School senior Claudetteia Love was going to boycott her prom after Taylor told her she could not wear a tuxedo to the event.
Love’s mother, Geraldine Jackson, said she Taylor told her that members of the faculty “working the prom told him they weren’t going to work the prom if [girls] were going to wear tuxes. That’s his exact words: ‘Girls wear dresses and boys wear tuxes, and that’s the way it is.”
Taylor reportedly said his decision was based upon the dress code and had nothing to do with Love’s sexuality. But McFarland wasn’t so sure.
“As school board president, I don’t agree with Carroll banning her from her prom just because of what she wants to wear. Tthat’s discrimination,” McFarland said. “As far as I know, there is no Monroe City School Board policy saying what someone has to wear to attend the prom. You can’t just go making up policies.”
Love is an honors student who will attend Jackson State University next year on a full academic scholarship. She said she was upset by the controversy, especially because the school had previously held her up as a shining example to the student body.
Love said she is concerned for girls “in lower grades than me, … I don’t want them to feel like they are less of a person because people don’t accept them.”
Pediatrician refuses to treat infant with lesbian parents
Michigan pediatrician Dr. Vesna Roi, despite having initially agreed to treat the infant daughter of Krista and Jami Contreras, backed out at the last minute because the child’s parents are lesbians, according to Inquisitor.com.
The couple said that Roi, a doctor with Eastlake Pediatrics in Roseville, Mich., had been highly recommended by their midwife, and they had met with her before their daughter, Bay, was born. They said Roi didn’t express any doubts or misgivings then, they said.
But when they took their daughter in for her first appointment, another doctor greeted them, telling them that “Dr. Roi decided this morning that she prayed on it and she won’t be able to care for [your daughter],’”Jami Contreras told The Washington Post. “Dr. Karam told us she didn’t even come to the office that morning because she didn’t want to see us.”
The two women said they were upset, hurt, embarrassed and humiliated. Jami Contreras said, “As far as we know Bay doesn’t have a sexual orientation yet so I’m not really sure what that matters. We’re not your patient — she’s your patient. And the fact is that your job is to keep babies healthy and you can’t keep a baby healthy that has gay parents?”
The Contreras continued with that first appointment but immediately began searching for another pediatric office, making sure that everyone they subsequently spoke to knew up front that they were lesbians and would have no problems with that.
Several months after their appointment, Dr. Roi sent the couple a letter explaining, “After much prayer following your prenatal, I felt that I would not be able to develop the personal patient-doctor relationships that I normally do with my patients.
“I felt that it was an exciting time for the two of you and I felt that if I came in and shared my decision it would take away much of the excitement. That was my mistake. I should not have made that assumption and I apologize for that.
“We do not keep prenatal information once we have our meetings so I had no way to contact you. I should have spoken with you directly that day…please know that I believe that God gives us free choice and I would never judge anyone based on what they do with that free choice.”
According to CBS Detroit, there are currently no laws that protect LGBT families from discrimination.
Manitoba day care denies service to lesbian couple
Manitoba Attorney General James Allum says he is outraged by allegations a lesbian couple was denied a Winnipeg daycare spot for their baby girl because of their sexual orientation, according to The Canadian Press.
Allum said no one in this day and age should be denied service on that grounds. “That’s simply outrageous. It’s as simple as that,” he said.
Agata Durkalec and her partner, Kate Taylor, say they are filing a human rights complaint after they say they were denied a Winnipeg daycare spot for their baby girl because of their sexual orientation.
The couple moved to Winnipeg from Ontario recently and began looking for a daycare for their 10-month-old daughter.
They thought they were in luck when they found an opening at a home daycare, but allege the daycare operator withdrew the offer in writing when she found out they are lesbians.
“My heart goes out to both of you but I know where my families stand on the subject, therefore it would not be a good fit,” the woman allegedly wrote to Durkalec. “I hope everything works out for you and your family.”
The couple, saying they were stunned by the response, picked up papers from the Manitoba Human Rights Commission and will be filing a complaint, Durkalec said.
Although they are no longer interested in putting their daughter in the home daycare, Durkalec said it should be made clear that any discrimination based on sexual orientation is wrong.
Allum said the allegations would be best handled by the human rights commission.
