Christian Academy Louisville homework: Persuade friend to not be gay – Courier Journal
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A homework assignment given to several middle-schoolers at Christian Academy of Louisville encourages students to persuade an imaginary friend to reject homosexuality.
And parents, members of the LGBTQ community and others aren’t pleased.
The assignment, which was due Thursday, came to the light Friday, when JP Davis, a Kentucky-based business owner, posted screenshots of the assignment on social media.
CAL officials confirmed the assignment late Friday afternoon.
Davis told The Courier Journal he was shown the homework by a close friend with a child who attends CAL who was “visibly and understandably upset about the assignment.”
“Her kid is in the class that was given the assignment, and he and her are both uncomfortable with it,” Davis, owner of the JP Davis Partners consulting agency, said. “She doesn’t know how to handle it. … And her kid’s upset.”
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Screenshots show the assignment required students to write a letter to a hypothetical friend “struggling with homosexuality” and persuade them “God’s design for them is good,” “homosexuality will not bring them satisfaction” and “you love them even though you don’t approve of their lifestyle.”
“Assume that you have known this friend since kindergarten, that you go to the same church and that you have been pretty good friends over the years until now,” the screenshot of the assignment read. “… The aim of your letter should be to lovingly and compassionately speak truth to the person you’re talking to in a way that does not approve of any sin. Instead, TRY TO PERSUADE THEM OF THE GOODNESS OF GOD’S DESIGN for them.”
In an email Friday afternoon, Christian Academy of Louisville School System Superintendent Darin Long said the assignment had been given to students in a middle school Bible elective class.
The homework was “part of a unit of study which discusses ‘What are humans and where is their identity?'” Long wrote, and “in context, was how a person could discuss homosexuality with a friend from a biblical perspective with compassion and love.”
“This hypothetical friend conversation was for our students to review the class discussions and their perspectives on the subject,” his statement said. “Moving forward, we will review this assignment to ensure there is clarity in its purpose and language.”
The Christian Academy School System is a private school system in the region with a Christianity-based curriculum. It has four campuses in Louisville and Southern Indiana. More than 3,000 children are in the school system.
Davis said the issue is personal to him. He spent the first 23 years of his life hiding his homosexuality, he said, before coming out as a gay man.
It took him a long time to gather the courage to go public, he said, and as he gets closer to 40, Davis said he doesn’t want the next generation to face the same struggles.
“The statistics speak for themselves on suicide among LGBTQ+ people, and these are seventh-graders that are being subjected to hate and division, and it’s not necessary,” Davis said. “I know it’s a Christian school, but that’s not my Christianity. That’s not my values. And that’s not what Jesus, if they want to make that argument, represented. Jesus didn’t go around asking people to judge and tell other people how they’re wrong and shame.”
A 2002 CAL graduate with ties to the school, Kylee Marcy told The Courier Journal she was also outraged when she heard about the assignment Friday morning through a social media post. She said she immediately reached out to other alumni, as well as parents who have kids at CAL.
She was angry, she said. But she wasn’t surprised.
“I would not call this out of character in any way,” she said. “But I was still really disappointed because I’ve been gone 20 years, and I would’ve hoped that in 20 years maybe they would have learned that love is the way to go, as opposed to the fire-and-brimstone hate. But it doesn’t seem like it to me.”
Marcy said the text and contents of the assignment indicate it was homework issued in the school’s Christian Worldview class. She questioned why CAL would focus an assignment targeting one sin — “if you do believe homosexuality is a sin, which I personally do not” – and called on the school to make some changes moving forward.
“I would like them to issue an apology and change the Christian Worldview class curriculum, and I would like that this specific teacher issue an apology to at least the parents and the students,” Marcy said.
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In Long’s statement, he said CAL teaches content “with a biblical worldview” and said the school believes marriage should be between a man and a woman and that it also encourages tolerance.
“We believe that God created the marriage covenant to be between one man and one woman (Gen. 1:27, Gen. 2:24). We believe that sex is a good gift of God, to be celebrated within the confines of the marriage covenant, agreeing that all other sexual expressions go against God’s design. (1 Cor. 6:18, Gal. 5:19),” Long’s statement said.
“We believe that all individuals are created in the image of God, and therefore should be treated with compassion, respect, dignity and love at all times even in disagreement.”
Lucas Aulbach can be reached at laulbach@courier-journal.com, 502-582-4649 or on Twitter @LucasAulbach.