Lesbian teachers booted from all-girl Catholic school

Lauralton Hall, an all-girl Catholic school in Milford, Conn., was surprised recently to learn that two of its teachers are involved in a lesbian relationship, and has issued an ultimatum to them – resign or be fired.

School officials discovered the lesbian relationship after the women sent out invitations to some members of Lauralton for a private "commitment ceremony" they had planned. A "commitment ceremony" is a homosexual version of marriage, except that the government and church don't recognize it as such.

Since the Catholic Church views homosexuality as a sin, the women were told to leave the school for not abiding by the church's doctrines.

"These ladies should not be teaching in that school," commented ex-homosexual and former Catholic Stephen Bennett, founder of Stephen Bennett Ministries, an organization dedicated to "sharing the truth about homosexuality with the world."

Bennett supports the Catholic school's decision and believes it will succeed in removing the lesbians despite the controversy it has created in both the school and the community. Reportedly there are other lesbians at the school, he says, that the administration doesn't know about, but who are known to some students.

"The school teaches that homosexuality and lesbianism is wrong, it's a sin. And yet you've got several lesbians there working in the school," Bennett told WorldNetDaily.

"That's like an alcoholic teaching a course on not drinking."

Maureen Murphy of Murphy, Murphy and Nugent is the lesbian teachers' civil rights attorney for any legal action the two women might decide to take against Lauralton. Murphy did not return WND's calls and has yet to comment publicly on whatever actions her clients plan to take.

In addition, several students and faculty members of Lauralton are leading a petition to stop the school from dismissing the lesbian teachers.

One parent of a Lauralton student, who knew the sexual orientation of the teachers, told the New Haven Register: "It's what she's doing in her own time. She was not espousing homosexuality. I think the students were well aware of her sexual orientation, but the administration was not."

Bennett says people are becoming "desensitized" to homosexual rhetoric. "People are just getting so bombarded with the gay media that they're becoming numb to it," he said.

"One of the final barriers, of course, of the gay movement is to break into all of the religious institutions, so it's no longer a sin, so they can be accepted everywhere."

Fairfield Prep is an all-boys Catholic High School and the "brother school" to Laurelton Hall. Bennett attended high school at Fairfield Prep and says there was a lot of homosexual activity going on between the students, teachers and clergy at the school. Homosexuality has run "rampant" through the Catholic Church, he says. Lesbians at a Catholic school are a definite matter of concern, insists Bennett, even though homosexuals say their sexual preference does not affect their teaching.

"I know firsthand when you have homosexual teachers within the school … they very well could influence or entice other girls into that lifestyle."

A Catholic priest and director of a support group for gay Catholic men and women, Rev. John Harvey, told the Register, "It would be a bad example for the students if the [staff] did not observe Catholic teachings. These two are declaring they don't go along with the Catholic faith, and the school is justified in firing them."

WND was unable to contact Karen Yardley, president of Lauralton Hall, but she told reporters earlier that she would not comment on the school's decision to oust the two lesbian teachers because it was a "personnel" issue.

"It's a travesty that a school like that would even have someone who's living that kind of a lifestyle being a teacher," said Bennett.

He recounts an instance of an ex-lesbian teacher who admitted to him that she used to introduce schoolgirls into the lesbian lifestyle. His organization is now fighting a second grade schoolteacher who was reprimanded by school officials because he "came out" to his elementary class and told them he was a homosexual. The man has now secured an ACLU attorney, says Bennett, and is "bullying" the public school into letting him keep his job.

He teaches a national seminar called "The Heart of the Matter, It's Elementary," says Bennett, which demonstrates "how elementary school teachers can incorporate gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transsexual doctrine into their everyday single classroom settings."

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