(AgapePress) - A Michigan public school that recently held a "diversity week" has now found itself the target of a federal lawsuit.

During the "2002 Diversity Week" last March at Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor, student speeches were given on a variety of topics, including homosexuality and religion. Betsy Hansen, who was a senior and has since graduated from Pioneer High School, wanted to give a speech which highlighted her Roman Catholic view that homosexuality is sinful. She hoped to present her speech during a panel discussion on homosexuality and religion.

But as Robert Muise, an attorney with the Thomas More Law Center says, school officials censored her speech.

"What the school ended up teaching at the end of the day during their so-called 'Diversity Week' is that they're not interested in diversity at all -- they're trying to promote a particular agenda," Muise says. "So we represent the student who was discriminated against -- and also her mother, who objects to the school using educational resources and time to promote religious beliefs that are contrary to her children's beliefs and to her family beliefs."

According to Muise, school officials removed all references in Hansen's speech that were critical of homosexuality. By doing so, Muise says school officials promoted a certain religious view in violation of the Constitution. "It certainly was an endorsement or promotion of a religious belief that is contrary to the traditional Christian religious belief," the attorney says, "but more importantly they exhibited an impermissible hostility toward the traditional Christian belief -- and that's just not permissible in a public school system."

The federal civil rights lawsuit states that school officials violated the Establishment Clause by promoting and endorsing the religious belief that homosexual activity is compatible with religion.

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