Miss California, Carrie Prejean, a student at San Diego Christian College (SDCC), recently made public her views that she views same-sex marriage as being unChristian.

But Prejean’s own behavior is questionable in that regard.

SDCC’s Web site notes that Prejean is currently on leave and praises her for her work helping young women escape the adult entertainment industry and teaching English to refugees. But it doesn’t mention her nude photos, breast implants or affiliation with Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, whose drug use and strip-club attendance are well known.

Yet, by any reasonable interpretation, this behavior violates the Christian credo Prejean and SDCC purport to uphold. Any Christian school, such as Bob Jones University or Point Loma Nazarene College, would expel a student who acted as Prejean has on grounds of deviant and sinful behavior. Indeed, Cal Lutheran High School recently expelled two teenage girls for kissing and telling friends they were lesbians. SDCC’s standards are similarly rigorous with regard to behaviors and “traits” that would conflict with its devout commitment to Christian principles. So why isn’t SDCC expelling Prejean? Why are taxpayers tolerating such arbitrary application of religious principal?

Christian colleges and schools that want to uphold their fundamentalist principles need to be consistent, or lose their federal and state funding and accreditation. How is it possible, for example, that Cal Lutheran expel two girls for kissing, while another Christian college merely suspends a student for modeling in the porn industry, as happened last week at Grove City College in Pennsylvania?

A Christian school should not be able to retain a student whose behavior breaches the school’s religious principles if that school continues to receive federal or state funding, nor to arbitrarily apply punitive measures. Congress and the California Legislature have made it clear that neither tolerate schools receiving federal and state funds to engage in such hypocrisy.

If SDCC wants to retain its funding, it should, at the very least, discipline Prejean.

Recently, the California Supreme Court refused to review a case involving Cal Lutheran high school’s expulsion of two teens who kissed and said they were lesbians. An appellate court held that the private religious school had the right to oust those who did not abide by its “Christian” mission.

The religious right is, of course, thrilled about the decision. But they should be worried: Two teen girls kissing is hardly the type of “homosexual conduct” that any rational religious order would act upon; in fact, it’s kind of on par with the Taliban’s despotic practices. At the very least, it constitutes discrimination, which is not tax supportable.

Private religious schools currently receive substantial state support in the form of corporate status, tax-exemptions, and agreements with state universities to accept the course work completed by their students. But that will now have to change ? just as the Legislature determined it was wrong to ask black taxpayers to subsidize schools that did not allow blacks (such as Bob Jones University) it will now also find it illegal to ask GLBT taxpayers to subsidize religious entities that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

Recently, two federal courts upheld the right of publicly supported universities to deny on-campus status to religious groups that discriminate on the basis of religion (and sexual orientation). The cases make clear that private religious groups can discriminate all they want; they just can’t expect the people they discriminate against to support them.