A Michigan woman has brought suit in federal court against her son’s school district along with the high school teacher she claims expelled the boy from class because his religious beliefs are inconsistent with accepting homosexuality.

Last week, the Thomas More Law Center filed the lawsuit on behalf of the mother, Sandra Glowacki, who charges the Howell, Michigan Public School District and an economics teacher, Johnson McDowell with violating her son’s constitutional rights, specifically his First Amendment right to free expression of his religion. Glowacki and her son, Daniel are Roman Catholic.

The suit says the teacher expelled Daniel Glowacki, 16, from class on October 20, 2010, while the students in the school district were observing anti-bullying commemorations and Spirit Day. On that day, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) encourages Americans to wear purple in support of LGBT youth who may feel bullied or threatened because of their sexual orientation.

The lawsuit states that the school district encouraged teachers to sell “Tyler’s Army” shirts in support of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers University freshman who killed himself in 2010 after his roommate streamed an Internet video that showed Clementi kissing another male student. The teacher, McDowell, devoted his classes to promoting homosexuality, and wore one of the purple T-shirts around students all day, according to the suit. It further claims that McDowell told another student to take off a Confederate flag belt buckle that he found offensive.

The lawsuit claims that when Daniel Glowacki asked the teacher why he thought it was allowable to display a rainbow flag, McDowell asked the student if he supported gays. Glowacki told him that his Catholic religion wouldn’t permit him, at which time the suit says that Glowacki and another, similarly-minded student were told to leave class. Although officials suspended McDowell for one day without pay for violating school district policy, they later erased the penalties in order to settle a grievance he had filed.

The Ann Arbor-based Thomas More Law Center represents, mostly through litigation, issues which are most usually in line with modern American social conservative positions: they oppose same-sex marriage; support pro-life positions and initiatives; and oppose, among other things, the removal of the Ten Commandments and other religious monuments from municipal and school buildings.