It could be one of the strangest cases in the annals of sex discrimination lawsuits: Jerry Connors, a parent of a wrestling team daughter in the Puget Sound area, is threatening to sue because little boys refuse to wrestle with his daughter.
The chivalrous little boys, who are on the wrestling teams of two private schools, have forfeited matches rather than push and shove little girls. Until recently, there was no problem.
A Seattle newspaper reports:
“For years, schools in the Rainier Valley League…have honored the ability of the two private schools to forfeit matches rather than have a boy wrestle one of the handful of girls on the public-school teams.
“League President Dan Petersen said it was the same as honoring desires of other religious schools not to compete on certain days.”
Instead of thanking the lads for civilized behavior, Connors, whose daughter Meghan is a seventh-grader, wants to sue. He says it is an obvious case of sex discrimination.
The boys are from Christian schools and they are claiming that beating up girls is against their religion. Which sounds like a pretty good tenet to me.
A former Episcopal president and one-time pastoral assistant for social justice at St. James Cathedral in Seattle, Mr. Connors has said that he is not against religion playing a role in public life. “But there’s a limit,” he said.
You don’t need to invoke religion, though.
If they were my sons, I’d tell them to say that gentlemen don’t beat up ladies.