School Threatens Expulsion as Teen Supports Gay Counselor

When Christian schools and freedom clash

I wrote yesterday about Kayla Kenney, a 15-year-old girl in a private Christian school who was expelled when her mother posted a photo of the girl’s rainbow-themed birthday to Facebook. The girl does not claim to be gay and says her rainbow cake had nothing to do with LGBTQ support, but her school said the Facebook post demonstrated an unacceptable “posture of morality and cultural acceptance.”

She was stigmatized and shunned for merely appearing to support LGBTQ people.

Today, I write of a different teenager, Dominic Conover, a high school senior who actively spoke out against what he says is “unjust discrimination.” His school threatened to expel him weeks before he graduated. Should students like Kayla and Dominic lose the the right to speak openly in public because their parents sent them to private religious schools?

Dominic Conover and the Archdiocese of Indianapolis

For background, Indianapolis Archbishop Charles Thompson has ordered the firing of all LGBTQ staff in archdiocese schools. After Conover and other students began speaking to news media last year to protest the LGBTQ purge, the archdiocese doubled down, threatening expulsions and inserting language into anti-bullying policy that amounts to a gag order for future students advocating LGBTQ equality.

A brief sketch of the facts

The archdiocese of Indianapolis runs more than 70 schools in central Indiana, including Cathedral High School, which resisted Thompson’s orders for 22 months before finally giving in last June and firing a gay teacher.

Thompson took away the Catholic identity of Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School after they refused to fire another gay teacher, coincidentally married to the fired teacher at Cathedral. Brebeuf criticized Thompson’s move as “unprecedented overstepping of authority,” saying that employment matters are usually not subject to the archdiocese’s jurisdiction.

Last year, Shelly Fitzgerald, a guidance counselor for 15 years at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis, was placed on administrative leave when someone found a marriage certificate showing she was married to a woman. She was fired as part of Thompson’s multi-school purge of LGBTQ faculty and staff.

Students fought back

Dominic Conover and six other Roncalli students founded Shelly’s Voice to protest the firing of their guidance counselor.

Dominic’s own words

Dominic explained the motivation behind the student advocacy in a powerful op-ed published in The Advocate:

At the beginning of the 2018–2019 school year, I was horrified by the way my school treated Shelly Fitzgerald, a guidance counselor of 15 years and alumna of Roncalli High School. She was stripped of her career and banished from the place we all used to call home. I felt compelled to combat this act of hatred because other LGBTQ+ students were afraid …

A few weeks after the news got out, ​​Shelly’s Voice Advocacy Group​ was​ founded by six high school students … who saw a great need for social reform in the Catholic Church and, frankly, in Indianapolis citywide.

Shelly’s Voice advocacy made an impact

The group quickly gained traction as they reached out to local and national media outlets, even landing an appearance on The Ellen Show. They say they wanted to reach LGBTQ students in communities everywhere and let them know that they were not alone.

Dominic began to feel targeted and harassed by school staff

He says that after his advocacy began, he “no longer felt comfortable being part of the LGBTQ+ community in my school.” The school’s president emailed him to say that same-sex marriage is “filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity.” A teacher he describes as a former friend and mentor complained to him that he was “leading people away from Christ.”

The archdiocese reacted with an iron fist

Dominic was called into “multiple meetings” with school administrators who counseled him to quiet his advocacy. He refused until a meeting last February that included the superintendent of the Archdiocese​ school system. He says district officials threatened to expel him unless he stopped speaking publicly.

Dominic gave in and stopped speaking out —

In that very moment, I was terrified. My diploma. My college education. My hard work. That is what they were willing to dangle over my head in order to hear nothing but silence from me. I felt defeated when I looked down at the table and said, “I will be silent in order to graduate from this school.” They ended the meeting shortly after. The closing remark still rings in my ear: “Well Dominic, this seems to have been a very productive meeting.” They finally got what they wanted and, at that very moment, ​​my heart finally broke as I realized I fell in love with a church that did not approve of who I was.

Catholic LGBTQ people and allies push back

According to the Pew Research Center, a large majority of American Catholics support same-sex marriage. An overwhelming majority oppose discrimination against LGBTQ people. The Archbishop’s actions have been very unpopular in Indianapolis. Across the US, Catholics are calling for equality and respect.

Robert Shine, associate editor for the pro-LGBTQ Catholic New Ways Ministries describes Dominic’s treatment as “quite alarming.” Shine wrote in an op-ed that, “Threatening a student’s educational path goes against all Catholic education values.” He added that speaking up for oppressed people is a positive Catholic value. “Roncalli officials should be lauding students like Dominic Conover for enacting the Catholic values which they have learned when it matters most.”

Shine joins a chorus of other Catholic voices in pointing out that Archbishop Thompson has not mandated the enforcement of church teachings to target divorced teachers, janitors who use birth control or condoms, or any staff member who has had an abortion or uses birth control. No one is pressing teachers of child-bearing years to explain why they don’t have large families.

Shine and others agree with Dominic that by targeting LGBTQ people particularly, the archbishop is guilty of “unjust discrimination.”

As for Dominic, he says Shelly’s Voice is grounded in Catholic teachings he learned at school:

Shelly’s Voice Advocacy Group was created to organize and mobilize our generation’s great amount of passion to stand up for what is right… We continue to stand up for the LGBTQ+ community because we believe in equality and acceptance. We believe there is inconsistency between the current Church policy and Church doctrine and we will continue until there is coherence in the Church’s teaching of universal acceptance and the policy they ask their employees to abide by.

Shelly’s Voice is growing and expanding

According to Spencer Harvey, communications coordinator for GLAAD, now that Dominic has graduated, he has redoubled his efforts to to speak up for LGBTQ youth. Harvey calls such advocacy crucial, writing that, “In a space where children and adolescents should be encouraged to embrace the values of inclusion, diversity and acceptance, schools with anti-LGBTQ policies continue to make some LGBTQ students and those of other marginalized identities feel unsafe and unwelcome.”

Roncalli High School is fighting to silence current and future students

The school has announced (ironically) a new archdiocese bullying and harassment policy that critics say is designed to stifle pro-LGBTQ speech off campus.

Each student is expected to treat the good name and reputation of other students, school employees, volunteers and the school with dignity and respect and not engage in any activity or conduct, either on campus or off campus, that is in opposition to this guideline and/or inconsistent with the Catholic Christian principles of the school, as determined by the school in its discretion.

The Culture Wars continue as LGBTQ people struggle for humanity and decency

Students like Dominic Conover deserve to feel safe and respected at school. Teachers and other staff deserve to be free from unjust discrimination. The Catholic Church in the person of Archbishop Charles Thompson is teaching kids that LGBTQ people are not fit to work in schools and that they deserve to be fired.

He’s teaching kids that homophobic discrimination and shunning is expected and appropriate.

Students deserve the right to protest homophobia in public

Whether a teenager is celebrating with a rainbow cake or speaking out against bigotry, they must not fear having their educations and lives disrupted. Kids must not lose their civil liberties and innate human rights because their parents choose to send them to a private religious school.

Religious schools clearly have the right to teach as they please within certain limits, but they must not enjoy the privilege of punishing students for disagreeing with them in public, off campus.

People who claim that churches deserve religious liberty to hurt people, especially LGBTQ people, have forgotten what freedom really means. Kayla and Dominic were exercising real freedom by living their lives in public with dignity. Their church-run schools wrested that freedom from them.

Freedom to practice religion cannot and must not mean freedom to force people to be silent in the public square.

James Finn is a long-time HIV/LGBTQ activist, an alumnus of Act Up NYC, an essayist occasionally published in queer news outlets, and an “agented” novelist. Send questions, comments, and story ideas to [email protected].