A Florida father is suing his 12-year-old son’s school district over the fact that his son was exposed to Pride flags in his computer science classroom.
Dr. Francisco Catalin Deliu of Palm Beach County is arguing that Emerald Cove Middle School, principal Dr. Eugina Smith-Freeman, and his son’s teacher Rachel Raos have been “expressly and/or implicitly advocating for homosexuality as an alternative way of life,” reports CBS 12.
Deliu, a Romanian refugee who fled due to religious and political persecution, is an Orthodox Christian who believes being gay is a sin.
The lawsuit says that in early September, Deliu’s son informed him that Raos had hung two Pride flags in her classroom, searched online “about homosexual lifestyles,” and “proselytized to the students in the class.”
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Deliu claims the principal dismissed him when he complained and said she’d have to speak to the Board to determine whether Raos was breaking the law. He also claims that after asking for his son to be removed from Raos’s class and placed in a different computer science class, the school instead moved his son to an art class without telling him.
The suit reportedly does not accuse the school of breaking Florida’s infamous Don’t Say Gay law. It argues that the school violated Deliu’s “substantive human rights” and “natural rights from God.” It accuses the state of “acting contrary to his religious beliefs” and says he has a right to prevent his child from being educated “in the ways of homosexuality.”
Deliu has also previously accused the school of spreading homosexuality through library books.
And these tussles are far from his first time getting involved with the law.
While living in New Zealand in 2017, Deliu’s law license was suspended for 15 months and he was ordered to pay over $250,000 due to “six charges of misconduct, one charge of unprofessional conduct, and one charge of conduct unbecoming a lawyer,” according to the New Zealand Law Society.
The charges were due to allegations of racism and discrimination he made against two judges, which the court reportedly said were “excessive, disgraceful, and baseless attacks on Judges made in provocative and intemperate language, and for the purposes of protecting the practitioner’s own interests.”
For the accusations against his son’s school, he reportedly is seeking a jury trial.
