There was a joyful moment this week when a Riverside County Superior Court judge ruled a Christian school in Wildomar has the right to set a code of conduct for its students' most intimate behavior.

The lawsuit was brought in December 2005 by attorneys for two teen girls who were kicked out of California Lutheran High School because school administrators believed them to be lesbians.

A leading contention by the students' attorneys is that the school is a private enterprise selling a service -- education -- and thus falls under the authority of the California Unruh Civil Rights Act in regard to equal protection from discrimination.

Novel reasoning, many observers say, but so flawed constitutionally that it shouldn't make it to a dollar-store bargain bin.

Thankfully, Judge Gloria Connor Trask apparently agrees.

Parents have lots of reasons why they pay thousands of dollars a year to send a child to a private school when they could avail themselves of the education free for the taking at our government dispensaries.

Whether we agree with their reasons for going outside the system is not relevant, though one hopes the motivator is providing the best education possible.

That may be a strong curriculum in discipline and responsibility in the manner of a military school or a school predicated on traditional and/or theological values or an arts-oriented secondary school where traditional boundaries are the gum stuck on the bottom of your sandal.

So, if you believe that being vegan is a critical component of becoming a fully educated, aware adult, you probably expect pricey, accredited Veggie Prep to be vigilant in protecting student digestive tracts from the ravages of animal protein.

Having chosen to spend big bucks there, don't be surprised if your young scholar arrives home a former student after getting caught with an empty Slim Jim wrapper.

To sue Veggie Prep for enforcing the value system it promoted when you chose the institution is disingenuous at best.

Similarly, to take action against California Lutheran for policing sexual behavior, no matter how innocuous or inconsequential to the rest of us, is to assault one of the pillars that brought you there.

Much school discipline doesn't require parental involvement. More troubling behavior involving things such as sex, drugs and violence, requires immediate contact.

As detailed in reports at the time the suit was filed, court papers allege the Rev. Gregory Bork, principal, "individually and separately interrogated the (students) in a closed room, without the parents' knowledge or consent … and asked (them) inappropriate and personal questions such as whether they loved one another and were lesbians."

"In such a manner," the documents state, "(the vice principal) coerced one of the (students) to admit that she 'loves' the other."

According to the report, the parents only were involved the next day when the principal called to tell them the school's board decided the kids aren't welcome.

The issue of these two girls' sexuality -- presumed or actual -- is not the big problem here. Even the presumption of a violation of standards without demonstrable proof is not the biggest of the problems.

That ugly honor goes to the notion that it's OK for an adult, a male authority figure yet, to presume to undertake what appears to have been the private inquisition of two teen girls who may have sinned with each other in their hearts or elsewhere.

If these two girls are students at California Lutheran because their parents want the best for them, it's not too big a stretch to suggest the parents might want to be more involved in their child's school life than just being an ATM for the school.

The tired-but-true harp that "parents need to get involved" only has meaning if you keep them in the loop. Indeed, the case at hand is an example of where parents must, not should, be involved from early on.

The girls' attorneys say they'll continue to argue on appeal that California Lutheran is an education merchant rather than a religious school and that trumps freedom-of-religion protection.

To quote the Aflac billy goat: Naaah!

Most troubling in this whole affair is the spectacle of a religious institution eviscerating the parental role. If the school is suspicious enough to expel, it should have been concerned enough -- long before getting to that point -- to work with the parents on the alleged transgressions.

Seems like the Christian thing to do.

Phil Strickland is a resident of Temecula and a regular columnist for The Californian. E-mail: philipestrickland@yahoo.com.