New job of VP Pence’s wife sparks LGBT students’ furor

The wife of the U.S. vice president has started a job teaching art to children, the White House announced, working at a private school with a policy of refusing LGBT+ students and teachers.

Karen Pence will be teaching twice-weekly art classes at Immanuel Christian School, an elementary school in Virginia, the White House said on Tuesday.

Her husband, Vice President Mike Pence, is a social and evangelical conservative who in 2015, as governor of Indiana, signed into law a religious freedom bill that would have allowed businesses to deny services to gays.

Controversy followed, and he was forced to revise the law.

The Immanuel Christian School where Karen Pence has started her job has written policies online saying it will not hire LGBT+ faculty as well as refuse admission to LGBT+ students or those with LGBT+ parents.

Students and parents’ lifestyles may not include “participating in, supporting, or condoning sexual immorality, homosexual activity or bi-sexual activity,” its policy states.

Teachers must not engage in such behaviors as “homosexual or lesbian sexual activity, polygamy, transgender identity, any other violation of the unique roles of male and female,” its job application states.

The head of GLAAD, a New York-based LGBT+ rights group, called on Karen Pence to resign from the job, saying it was “disturbing” she would “put her stamp of approval on an institution that actively targets LGBT students.”