Should entities (religious or otherwise) who receive Federal funding be allowed to discriminate?

Sure. Separation of Church and State, and so on. Any such law would be directly interfering with someone’s religion.
It is unwise for schools in general to accept federal funding because there’s always someone trying to use that money like a puppet string, as in this case.
Or would you rather that the federal government be given a monopoly on education? If so, what if they started teaching something that you don’t think that they should teach?

No, they should not. If an institution receives government funds, it must abide by government standards, which are anti-discriminatory. Your link is a good example of a religious school aided by public funds rejecting the rule of law based solely on their institutional opinions.

Oh come on. Discrimination is okay? What color is the sky in a world were that’s allowed?

Addendum Don’t forget that to the traditional part of the Church, gay adoption is tantamount to child abuse. They wouldn’t want to get involved with that. The whole point of the Christian school is so that the values taught hopefully reflect the values of of the parents.
If we’re going to be fair, we’ll need to cut funding to all groups that have political opposites, you know. Double standards are unacceptable.
My question is why did that “couple” want to send the kid there? It seems like they’re trying to cause trouble.

No. That would make the government complicit in that discrimination, and discrimination in housing, voting, and employment is illegal. Other types might fall under freedom of association, but would likely fail to pass muster in a court of law (and it is therefore inadvisable for an institution to try testing that boundary).

That lack of freedom is the price such institutions pay for Federal dollars.

@Nullo : If a church wants to run a school to teach its own rigid values, let them, but they should not accept government funds to do so. The law of the land makes discrimination illegal. It’s plain and simple. It’s also the law of the land that if you accept government funds to run an educational institution, you must abide by our laws.

Your use of quotation marks around the word couple is inflammatory. It is demeaning. The couple in question may have been looking for a good place for their 3-year-old child. I highly doubt you would trouble yourself to get to know the couple in the report.

Your mention that “gay adoption is tantamount to child abuse” is repulsive and insulting.

If we’re going to be fair, we have to abide by the laws of our nation, which have been worked out over a long period of blood, sweat, and tears. Happily in this country, there are people able to carry on civilized discourse about politically charged issues without resorting to passive-aggressive writing.

@Hawaii_Jake, very respectively I’d like to ask you to explain what laws of our nation you are referring to? I think @Rarebear‘s post is very thought provoking. I would love for the discussion to go beyond the instinctive reaction that I would have when answering by instantly wanting to say, “Of course people shouldn’t discriminate and if they are obliged to, you don’t receive taxpayer money.”

But I believe there is more to the discussion and a great learning opportunity if we all relax and answer with our heads and our hearts. This isn’t the first case of this type of situation. There were similar cases a few years ago involving Catholic Churches in Boston and another, I think in Denver.

If you possess conciousness and senses, you are going to discriminate. Otherwise, you would percieve everything you ever encounter in reality as exactly the same thing that you previously perceived or as nothing at all. In either case, you put your survival at risk. If you can not discriminate, you do not know safe from hazardous.
The idea that people should not discriminate is a demand,by the political State, that they ignore the very things that allow them to interact with their environment-their senses and their minds. What a great way to create a voting contstituency of stupid, unthinking, unquestioning slaves!
Answer, yes. Of course.

@bkcunningham : Title VI, section 601 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: “This section states the general principle that no person in the United States shall be excluded from participation in or otherwise discriminated against on the ground of race, color, or national origin under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” (Source) Since the writing of the act in 1964, race, color, or national origin has been enlarged by both further acts of Congress and by the courts to include gender, sexual orientation, and this year gender identification.

I for one, would like to know how they know what a three year old’s sexual preference is.

@josie It’s there a difference between preferences and discrimination?

Absolutely not. If a public school can’t do it, a private school receiving federal funds shouldn’t be able to, either.

That was supposed to be isn’t.

@Adirondackwannabe Meaning preferences are good, discrimination is bad? Or vice versa? Or what? Not following you here.

Look at number 2, @Hawaii_Jake.

@bkcunningham : This is not religious discrimination as described in #2, which would mean discriminating based on religious views. This is discrimination based on sexual orientation.

@josie I think the problem is that you are equivocating on “discriminate.” You are insisting on the most literal sense of the word in which all acts of distinguishing one thing from another are discrimination, whereas the question is clearly using the term in the legal sense in which only prejudicial treatment of different groups of people counts as discrimination.

Aren’t there exceptions for religious schools, @Hawaii_Jake? That is what I’m trying to show.

@josie I was thinking I have things I like, that I prefer over other alternatives. I prefer dogs over cats. I see discrimination as denying people opportunities based on their skin color, their sex, their creed, or their religion. Your thoughts?

@bkcunningham : I’ve got to run and will have to get back to this later.

Thank you, @Hawaii_Jake. :~)

Private schools, both sectarian and nonsectarian, may apply for all sorts of federal funding and the local school districts are required to provide “equitable services” to private school students and teachers under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act— Title IX, Part E, Subpart 1

@Adirondackwannabe
I would rather play golf with guys than with girls.
I do not like to go to church (so I don’t).
I like to hang out with people who are happy, read a book occasionally and do not say fuck every other word. I avoid those who follow a different path.
I prefer to have sex with women. If all the women reject me, I’ll give it up. I prefer not to do it with a guy.
These are some of my preferences.
If they are different than other people’s preferences, that is their business, and I hope they have the same attitude toward me.
But I do not have to like their preferences, nor do I demand that they like mine.
Is that what you meant?

Here’s the question I keep coming back to in my simple little mind. If the powers that be at this particular Christian school hadn’t raised an eyebrow and accepted the child, would the parents have any right to a say in the curriculum of the child? If they child brought home a picture she had colored that indicated a tenant of the school’s beliefs and it contradicted what they couple believed, would they have a right to protest and have this removed from the school’s curriculum?

Yes, exactly what I meant. Those are preferences. I’m guessing if you were interviewing for an opening in your business, you wouldn’t toss anyone’s applications in the trash can, based on any factor other than how qualified they were.

But if they were not qualified, I would politely not hire them.
I would properly discriminate between the qualified and the unqualified.
And I would expect govt agencies, who spend my tax dollars, to be equally if not more discriminatory.

I see what you meant. Yeah I see where that kind of discrimination fit’s in perfectly. I don’t know if I’d quite call it discrimination in the black and white terms. But if my appendix is ready to burst, and my choice is Floyd the janitor or my niece that is an intern, Floyd gets hosed big time.

@Adirondackwannabe You’d be right to say that it’s not discrimination—at least, not in the sense relevant to the OP. Not hiring someone who is unqualified is not prejudicial (i.e., a preconceived opinion not based on reason or evidence). It is “postjudicial” (i.e., an opinion formed after the fact based on reason and evidence). So again, @josie is equivocating (as I noted above).

@SavoirFaire The question was should they be allowed to discriminate.
The question was not should they be allowed to be prejudicial.
How come you get to pretend the question changes to suit your answer?

@josie Context and the principle of charity both tell us that your literalism is out of place. I don’t have to pretend anything to understand why your answers are non-responsive.

Ugh, why would they send their 3-year-old child there unless they are using him as a pawn to prove a point? Why not protest directly and leave the kid out of it?

@phaedryx Maybe the family is religious? Or maybe they believe it is the best school in the area? Not all Christians are bigots, so why should this couple have expected this to happen?

I assume they’d check out the school and its policies before trying to send their child, but, you’re right, there isn’t enough information to know.

@bkcunningham : I am corrected. Discrimination by religious institutions based on one’s sexual orientation is legal.

It’s not right, but at this time, it’s still legal.

I wonder if religious educational institutions can discriminate based on race or national origin?

@Hawaii_Jake Thankfully the OP wasn’t whether or not entities can legally discriminate, but whether or not they should.

@phaedryx The impression I get from the story is that this isn’t a standing policy, but something that happened when someone at the school noticed both “parent” boxes on the child’s application were filled with men’s names.

In certain circumstances, @Hawaii_Jake, yes. It is amazing to me.

No.