Not content to target bakeries, photographers, florists, and pizza shops, the gay lobby is taking aim at what they consider their ultimate trophy: the Christian church.

Dowling Catholic High School in West Des Moines, Iowa, has decided not to hire an openly gay teacher, and the gay rights mob became outraged. Some 150 students, alumni, and out-of-town supporters participated in a rally to protest Dowling’s refusal to hire substitute teacher Tyler McCubbin, an openly gay man who intends to marry his same-sex fiancé (or is it fiancée?).

In a letter to parents, Des Moines Catholic Schools superintendent Luvern Gubbels wrote that McCubbin’s lifestyle was “at odds with Church teaching,” and that “The Catholic faith is central to our mission, and in order to deliver on that mission it is our expectation that staff and teachers support our moral beliefs.”

Bishop Richard Pates of the Diocese of Des Moines sent out a press release, stating:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls for us to accept those with same-sex tendencies “with respect, compassion and sensitivity.” Such an approach has guided the school’s relationship with the applicant in question. We wish him only well. (Catechism of the Catholic Church #2358)
While we respect all persons and civil law in regard to civil unions, the Church teaches based on natural law, Scripture and the Church’s 2,000-year tradition that marriage is a sacrament between a man and a woman. The Catholic faith is central to our mission as a Catholic school and is an exercise of religious liberty. To deliver on that mission it is our expectation that staff and teachers support our moral beliefs as they are the models of our Catholic faith.

No matter. Several students organized a walkout, one of them a 16-year-old sophomore girl who said, “This is not just about someone getting rejected, this is about love. We cannot let this issue slide without voicing that love.”

This is not the only time Catholic schools have been caught in the crosshairs of student protestors, who are either ignorant of the Church’s teachings, or have decided to reject them in favor of the trendy gay Zeitgeist. In January, 2014, a Seattle-area Catholic high school vice principal was let go after it was discovered that he married his boyfriend.  A St. Louis-area Catholic music teacher was fired in 2012 when he was planning to marry his lover in New York state. Both firings resulted in protests and anger by students and parents.

And now gay students at Christian high schools are getting into the act.

In February of this year, at Lutheran High North in Houston, a gay 17-year-old identified only as “Austin” was asked to leave the school after he announced his homosexuality in a YouTube video. He was given the option by the principal to take down the video, or find another school. Austin chose to leave Lutheran High, but not until publicizing his story at the local ABC affiliate in Houston, saying that the school’s principal told him “. . . being a homosexual is a sin and we cannot have you promoting a sinful lifestyle.”

Well, no. The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod declares only that homosexual behavior goes against Biblical teaching. The Church, like the Diocese of Des Moines mentioned above, seeks to minister to those with homosexual inclinations with respect and “to help the individual to bear his/her burden without fear of recrimination and rejections by his/her sisters and brothers in Christ.”

Certainly a private school is within its rights to remove a student; even Austin acknowledged that in his interview with the TV station. Christian schools — so far — are on safe legal ground in firing or rejecting a teacher candidate in accordance with the 2012 Supreme Court case Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC. Chief Justice John Roberts, in speaking for the unanimous court decision, wrote,

 “The interest of society in the enforcement of employment discrimination statutes is undoubtedly important, but so too is the interest of religious groups in choosing who will preach their beliefs, teach their faith, and carry out their mission.”

So here are some questions: What did these individuals think would happen by ‘coming out’ at a Catholic or Lutheran school? Furthermore, why did they not just leave the Christian schools quietly rather than causing commotion?

Because these conflicts are not about equality. They are not about rights. They are about using media to ridicule and marginalize people of traditional faith, Christians in particular. As Erick Erickson of RedState puts it, “You will be made to care.” A naive 16-year-old might sob that “this is about love,” but ‘love’ is far from the reality of the issue.

Someday a gay couple will saunter into a Christian church and demand to be married. And when they are refused they will file suit. Perhaps the church will be a small non-denominational congregation that lacks the deep pockets of large denominations to hire top notch attorneys. But there are leftist attorneys salivating at the chance to earn their chops at further tearing down the Christian church in America. It will come. The left stops at nothing.