There really hasn't been a lot to discuss about the weekend, I went back to my family's house Friday, making incredible time by the way, and then just sort of sitting artound until Sunday when we went to my Granparent's house in Cleveland. We stayed there the night, and ate breakfast in the morning, and I came back last night. That's pretty much it. I didn't have a chance to watch the Sunday morning shows, though I was able to keep up my Buffy and Angel fixes. One significant thing today that seems to have gone underreported is that a court over turned the ban on Partial birth abortion, which leads me to my rant.

My old High school, frankly, has gone insane. While I was there things seemed pretty normal. A catholic high school is a catholic High school, and while we were obviously stricter on things like dress code or language then say Community High just down the street, we were for all intents and purposes, a normal high school. Only in my senior year did things start to get a little weird. We had drug testing put in, on a sort of, "if we suspect you we'll test you basis" which seemed a bit fascist, but I guess understandable. I objected at the time, and still do, but I do understand the reasoning. After I left, and I heard my brother's stories about how almost a third of his class was either kicked out or asked not to come back after a school year, it got me to thinking that Richard may be going a bit to far. Then came two events that really set things in motion as far as the wrong people being out in front: the principal, Richard Bayhan, resigned after the diocese refused to back him after he suspended a student for giving a shaving kit to a female teacher, and the new school was built, on land donated by Tom Monaghan and kitty corner from Christ the King Parish.

I'm sure most of you know who Tom Monaghan is. He founded Domino's and later bought the Tigers. Well, he has always been a religious man. He founded missions in other countries, he built Catholic schools. And he funded Operation Rescue, the radical anti-abortion group in California. This earned him a boycott from many liberals, who refused to order from Domino's. About a decade ago, he sold Domino's, and the company that bought it, in addition the the hundreds of millions they gave him for the company, paid him an additional hundred million NOT to start another pizza chain. Needless to say, Tom Monoghan is a very rich man. And a man of deep faith. And he lives in Ann Arbor. This is not a good combination. The schools he has set up tend to be from a stricter model of Catholic education, which is different, but I suppose he knew there were people who wanted it. The troubling part comes later, when he began setting up the following things Ave Maria University, a four year school now located in Florida, Ave Maria School of Law, which is a very conservative law school set up because he believed law shools at places like Notre Dame and BC weren't "Catholic enough", and scariest of all, the Thomas More Law Center, set up to be the "Catholic" answer to the ACLU. Monaghan also gave Richard the land to build the new school on the Domino's Farms property. This was before he proposed to build the crucifix that would be taller than the statue of Liberty on the property.

Christ the King Parish is a part of Opus Dei, the conservative Catholic movement that uses evangelical worship techniques anmd holds the Bible and strict adherence to church law to be sacred cows. The kids I went to school with who attended Christ the King were always a bit more hardcore about their faith, but could also be like Mandy Moore in "Saved" the kind of Christian who uses their faith as a bludgeoning device. Well, not suprisingly, after my class left, and especially after Bayhan left in 2001, the school seemed to be virtually controlled by the Opus Dei people. They seemed, and still seem to have, a grip on the school that seems unchecked. They have the power to review what songs come on at dances, what dances are danced at dances. They have the power to see that their views are the only ones seriously taught in theology classes, and social behavior in and outside of school is regulated. This brings me to the heart of why I am ranting here.

A recent school newsletter contained a note from the Chaplain, Fr. Richard Lobert, who started at Richard the same year I did. It talked about how, with Prom season coming, parents needed to raise "their alert levels" about sexual activity by their children. They equated this alert to the one the Dept. of Homeland Security raises about terrorism. Only then did I find out about the people behind the alert being issued, the SIC (Sexual Integrity Committee), made up of mothers and other people involved in the school. They had brought in Chastity lecturers, sent home notices about other things. The group was headed by the mother of one of my high school crushes, the one that I wrote about in the play that was performed at workshops, and from which my blog now takes its name, junior year. The idea of a committee like this is scary to me for one reason: the possibility, and probability, that it would create a "Crucible" type of atmosphere around sex, and make life especially difficult for kids who might be gay. I can imagine them outing people is what I am trying to say.

This is something no one should want, obviously. I have seen what my friends have gone through, especially when it comes to mixing their sexuality and religion. I know that one person in particular had a very difficult time trying to attend and perform at chapel at Albion because certain close minded individuals did not want them to be able to. I don't want this to happen in high school. I don't want a group of religious zealots branding students with the Scarlet letter 'G' or 'W' or anything like that. I want the teens of Richard to be taught about their sexuality, to talk about it openly with their teachers and parents. They can be taught about saving it for marriage, and the great gift from God that it is, but also to understand what is going on physically, and to understand that you don't go to hell because of who you are or mistakes you have made. That isn't happening know. The board, the faculty, the PTG, it all seems overrun with zealots. I just hope this might help some of them come to their senses and breathe.

Sorry to bore you.

Jim