Two former students of Cal Lutheran High and their parents have filed suit against the California Lutheran High School Association claiming discrimination, invasion of privacy and unfair business practices after the students, who were suspected of having a lesbian relationship with each other, were interrogated by Cal Lutheran High’s principal, Gregory Bork, and expelled because, quoting this North County Times article, “the school has a spiritual and moral obligation to keep its students from sin.”

At the start of this school year, the faculty suspected that the two students may have had homosexual ideas or might have been intimate with each other, court documents state. The lawsuit does not name the students or parents to protect their privacy, it states.

On Sept. 7, the students were called into a meeting with the principal, the lawsuit states.

“Bork individually and separately interrogated the (students) in a closed room, without the parents’ knowledge or consent … and asked (them) inappropriate and personal questions such as whether they loved one another and were lesbians,” court documents state. “In such a manner, Bork coerced one of the (students) to admit that she ‘loves’ the other.”

The next day, Bork allegedly called the students’ parents and said the school’s board had met and decided the students were not to come back to the school, the lawsuit states. The day after that, the parents confronted Bork in person and by phone, and he responded that the two girls could not stay at Cal Lutheran “with those feelings,” according to the lawsuit.

In a Sept. 15 letter to the students’ parents, Bork wrote that “while there is no open physical contact between the two girls, there is still a bond of intimacy … characteristic of a lesbian (relationship). … Such a relationship is unchristian. To allow the girls to attend (Cal Lutheran) … would send a message to students and parents that we either condone this situation and/or will not do anything about it. That message would not reflect our beliefs and principles.”

Christopher Hayes, the attorney representing the two girls, believes that Cal Lutheran High’s actions violate California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, which prohibits businesses from discriminating based on sexual orientation. He claims anti-discrimination rights override the school’s constitutional rights of freedom of association and freedom of religion.