Baptist School in Kentucky Upholds Their Stated Policy. Why Is This News Again?

According to the Lexington Herald-Leader the University of the Cumberlands, a small Baptist college, has expelled a student after seeing his MySpace site, on which he declared his homosexuality. The student, Jason Johnson, was confronted by two school officials who showed him his profile, showed him a copy of the 2005-06 handbook, and them gave him a letter that required him to leave immediately.

These are the facts that were in the story. What I find interesting are the "extras". For example:

The news that his boyfriend, Jason Johnson, was expelled from University of the Cumberlands was still sinking in when Zac Dreyer sat at a computer to spread the news.

What in the world is this about? The news piece starts off with nothing but emotional fluff. Facts please, just give us the facts.

But a copy of the student handbook provided by the university confirmed the policy was not spelled out in 2003-04, when Johnson chose to attend.

Is this a new story or an indictment? It sounds an awful lot like a case is being made instead of a story being told. I went to a Baptist school and one year there were a couple of guys who broke a lot of rules - one of which being that they flagrantly displayed hardcore pornographic pictures in their room. Now, nowhere in the handbook could you find the words "students are not allowed to hang hardcore pornographic pictures on their wall", yet it was obviously against school policy.

Johnson, a sophomore majoring in theater arts, was expelled from the university Thursday because he declared online that he is gay.

The thing I like about this sentence is that is factual and correct. Throughout the story people are quoted as saying that Johnson was expelled for "being gay". Not necessarily true. What we do know is that he was expelled after declaring his homosexuality in a very public way.

I was, frankly, amused by many of the quotes that Johnson's fellow students made.

He is being asked to leave the university because he is gay

I guess that I have already covered this, but again, he was not expelled for what he is he was expelled for what he did.

They're being hypocritical, by Christian standards

First of all, in what way are they being hypocritical? I could see if she had said that they were not showing mercy or were being hard-hearted etc., but dropping the h-word is the old standby that people use to criticize any institution that is simply holding to a standard. Secondly, are there any standards of conduct that the school can appropriately uphold? What if Jason was having a public affair with a married woman? Good money says that he would have been kicked out and nobody would have blinked an eye.

Johnson, who is considering legal action against the university, said students shouldn't question their faith, but they should question their personal beliefs.

Huh?

The bottom line is that this is a private institution. If the state of Kentucky doesn't want to give money to private schools then so be it - pull funding from private institutions. But if the state has determined that giving money to private schools is a good thing to do then they shouldn't discriminate against schools because of their religious beliefs.