Mike Pence's Wife Teaches at a School That Bans LGBTQ Students, Staff

Karen Pence, better known as the wife of our phenomenally homophobic Vice President Mike Pence, has picked up a new job of her own.

As of this week, she’s begun teaching art part-time at Immanuel Christian School in Virginia. This is not Pence’s first run at the school. She previously taught there for twelve years while her husband was in Congress, and one of their daughters, Charlotte, is listed on the school’s site as a graduate.

But of course when the Pences are involved, there’s usually a homophobic twist.

In this case, the school openly refuses LGBTQ students, families, and employees.

The “parent agreement” posted on the school’s website claim the school focuses “on the areas of agreement, not on issues which divide,” but insist students and parents are never to “propagate doctrines” that are “not in agreement with our statement of belief.”

The document goes on to list a number of things the prospective students and their families must believe in and promise to abide by. The longest section of the list is a “morality” clause, which states the school is permitted to kick a student out of school if anyone in the home is involved in “participating in, supporting, or condoning sexual immorality, homosexual activity or bi-sexual activity.”

Hypothetically, this would mean that even buying your gay next-door neighbors a wedding gift and not reminding them every Christmas that they’re going to hell could get your kid kicked out of school.

Meanwhile, the employment application requires the prospective teachers to agree to “maintain a lifestyle based on biblical standards of moral conduct,” which they define as “heterosexual activity outside of marriage, homosexual or lesbian sexual activity, polygamy, transgender identity, any other violation of the unique roles of male and female.”

One would assume that Mrs. Pence had to sign this application, and yet, Mike is her second husband. By “true” biblical standards, most subsequent marriages are considered to be ongoing adultery on one’s first spouse. But, of course, it’s much easier to pick out the parts of the Bible that condemn the people you want to oppress.

Unfortunately, in Virginia, it’s fully legal for private schools to discriminate against LGBTQ students and staff, so the school will continue on with its anti-LGBTQ ways, and the new art teacher will surely make sure none of her students are expressing themselves in a potentially queer way through art.

It’s too bad. Certainly nobody wants LGBTQ students being taught by a Pence, but perhaps actually being around some could have taught her something.