According to a mom, a private, Christian school in Owasso, Oklahoma, has expelled her second-year daughter after she told a fellow female classmate she had a crush on her.
Delanie Shelton told Fox’s Tulsa-based affiliate Fox23 the vice principal of Rejoice Christian School called her daughter, Chloe, in for a talk after the playground incident, which took place Thursday last week.
“[Chloe] said the vice principal sat her down and says the bible says you can only marry a man and have children with a man,” Shelton said. “My daughter was crying saying ‘Does God still love me?’”
Delanie Shelton was rung and asked to come to pick her daughter up.
“The vice-principal asked me how do I feel like girls liking girls and I said if we’re being honest, I think it’s okay for girls to like girls and she looked shocked and appalled,” said Shelton.
The mom said she is raising her kids to love whoever they wish to love and not judge others.
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Shelton received a call from the school the next day, Friday, to tell her Chloe and her five-year-old brother were no longer welcome at the school.
Rejoice Christian Schools describes itself as, “one of the largest Christian schools in the Tulsa area. It is our Vision to be a Christian school that provides students with excellence in education and strength in character so that students will be spiritually, intellectually, physically, and socially equipped to impact their community and the world for Christ.”
Approached by the media, the school first pointed to its handbook for students. This states it encourages friendships between students but nothing beyond this: “We do not allow students at Rejoice to engage in boyfriend/girlfriend relationships while at school.” However, it does not say anything about expelling kids if they fall foul of this principle.
The school’s Superintendent, Joel Pepin, later issued a statement saying: “Due to privacy and other factors, it is the school’s policy to refrain from public comments regarding any particular student or family.”
Shelton said, “They ripped my kids out of the only school they’ve ever really known away from their teachers and friends they’ve had over the past four years over something my daughter probably doesn’t know or fully understand.”
Her daughter, Chloe, said she felt “really sad and betrayed and kind of angry” at her expulsion, but had been heartened by the many messages of support she’d received.
“I feel so loved and supported, thank you so much to everyone who helped me feel better for being who I am,” she told Fox23.
Related: Teachers caught trashing gay colleague in front of students on Zoom
The neighborhood across from the school plan to show support for Chloe this weekend by putting up signs on their front lawn that the family will drive past on Saturday at 3pm.
Cam
Bigotry is all Evangelicalism seems to stand for these days.
Waiting for the usual suspects to come on here and try to blame the victim “What was she doing in that school, she’s just looking for attention, etc.”
jcool
i feel horrible that they made this little girl feel this way, but the good news is that she won’t grow up being “educated” by these people
iggy6666
Should have just cut it short after the first sentence……
Paul Nadolski
It would be a truly great day for the world if so-called Christians would start living by the ACTUAL teachings of Christ: love one another, do unto others as you would want them to do unto you, and take care of the poor. (I think there was also something about judge not, lest ye be judged). This is why I left any form of organized Christianity behind years ago.
Cam
It’s like with that woman, Kim Davis that they all celebrated because she was a bigot.
The Ten commandments spoke against adultery, and Jesus spoke against divorce and said if you divorce and marry another, you are committing constant adultery against your first spouse violating the Commandment.
Kim Davis was on her 4th husband and had cheated on the other three yet she was lauded as a wonderful Christian because she hated LGBTQ people….something Jesus never mentioned. They aren’t “Religious”. They’re just a**holes who found away to excuse their racism and bigotry.
The bigotry is all these Christians care about anymore.
Hillers
Preach, brother! The bad “Christians” always seem to get the best press, and those of us who actually walk in Christ’s path are barely noticed
tdave
I live about 15 miles from this school. Unfortunately this type of reaction is normal here. When you have nothing but a majority of small minded, religious nut cases, if you are not just like them, they go out of their way to punish, and ostracize you. If you don’t fit within their “perfect” little world that is defined only bt THEIR race, religion, sex, sexual identity, or sexual orientation you, and your relationships are considered to be immoral. In Oklahoma it’s not going to change anytime soon, which is why I am working on getting out of this state by the end of the year. While no place is perfect, it doesn’t get much worse than it is here.
Thad
And you’re in Tulsa – a city with a ballet company and an arts community. I can only imagine how it could be in rural towns.
MacAdvisor
I feel terrible for the little girl and her brother. They were badly treated by the staff and the principle without any real justification. The school could have removed them without all the shaming fuss. HOWEVER, let’s be absolutely, completely, crystal clear about one thing: people have a right to associate with like minded people and to enforce their private rules. It protects us and them. They want to behave like anti-Christian fools, they get to do so. The only thing we can really do — and I think we need to be much more aggressive about this — is to stop subjecting ourselves and our children to these kinds of situation. Why on Earth would a mother who I think rightly believes, “she is raising her kids to love whoever they wish to love and not judge others,” put her children into such an environment?! It is like joining the KKK and then being shocked they are group of racists. I am all for fighting the good fight, but I wouldn’t put an 8-year old and a 5-year old on the front lines. Like the old story of the frog and the scorpion, who is really to blame. The frog as he took on the scorpion knowing full well what it was. Let’s stop putting our children in Christian schools. Let’s find good, safe spaces for them. That is the parent’s and our community’s responsibility, not to express outrage when — surprise, surprise — the scorpions of the “Christian” community sting us.
barkomatic
Once again, you only have the freedom to associate with like minded people and enforce rules that do not harm others. This bigoted sect clearly harms children who are in their formative years.
How many of these kids are going to grow up, marry people of the opposite sex only to find themselves unable to maintain that relationship because they couldn’t pray away the gay? Then, not only are they harmed, but the person they married and any children *they* had are as well. Misery all around just to advance a dillusion.
I’m sorry, but the harm inflicted is too great to allow the “freedom” to harm others as some type of warped free speech argument.
Cam
Except this isn’t true. If that school said that no disabled people could go there, or Asians, etc. they would be shut down. We as LGBTQ people need to stop assuming that it’s ok for people to treat us in ways that it isn’t ok to treat others.
Openminded
Mac. I would imagine the mother here had drank the cool-aid her mother fed her when she was in church every Sunday as a child and believed she was doing the right thing by enrolling the kids in the church school. She probably believed the church was as kind and open hearted as she was. Obviously, she found out differently. I don’t think the kid was expelled for stating her crush on another girl. It appears to me the whole family was blackballed because they were seen as “not good enough for us” and unwilling to bow to their way of thinking by the leaders of the church school. It only takes a few “holier than though” leaders in a church or church school to ruin it for the whole congregation. Bigotry, racism, and other harmful vices can be well hidden behind a Bible. But that doesn’t mean that all Bible toting folks are that way.
Brian
I don’t want to use the offensive trope that “it’s just a phase,” but let’s be honest: 8-yr. olds don’t know what love is. Let kids be kids. Let them hug and play and say “I love you” to anyone. Policing someone so young is creepy.
whateverokok
But 8- year olds shouldn’t be expressing something as fluid as sexuality. And I don’t understand why the mother is allowing it. Don’t get me wrong, as I am all for people expressing their love and sexuality for whomever they want. I just think our kids are growing up way too fast and should be kids as long as they can. You only get to be a kid once. Let’s leave them out of the politics.
Doug
It still surprises me that in 2021 incidents like this still happen in this country.
Andy
Well sending her to public school at least she’ll be getting a well rounded and non sectarian education. When she goes to her house of worship she can get all that other mythology etc. Everyone have a terrific weekend!
ffmikey
Another heretic school engaging in false teaching of Our Lord. When will those who claim to be Christian see thru these false teachings? Jesus instructed Peter to build his church. Peter was the first Holy Father, Pope, of what is now refer to as the Roman Catholic Church, a church that teaches homosexuals should be treated with love and respect.
amanwithanedge
beyond reprehensible.
Openminded
This story reminds me how old I am. When I was in 3rd or 4th grade, there was a huge brew haha over a white boy dating a black girl. I guess we’ve come a long way baby, but we still got a long way to go at this rate. That was around 50 years ago. Let’s hope it’s not another 50 before same sex crushs in elementary schools become acceptable.