LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) — A second-grader was scolded and forced to write “I will never use the word ‘gay’ in school again” after he told a classmate about his lesbian mother, the American Civil Liberties Union alleges.

According to the ACLU, which filed a complaint with the Lafayette Parish School Board, 7-year-old Marcus McLaurin was waiting in line to go to recess Nov. 11 at Ernest Gaullet Elementary School when a classmate asked him about his mother and father.

McLaurin responded that he had two mothers because his mother is gay. When the other child asked for explanation, McLaurin told him: “Gay is when a girl likes another girl,” according to the complaint.

A teacher, overhearing the remark, scolded McLaurin, telling him “gay” is a “bad word” and sending him to the principal’s office. The following week, the school required the boy to attend a behavioral clinic at 6:45 a.m., where he was forced to repeatedly write “I will never use the word ‘gay’ in school again,” the civil liberties group said.

The ACLU claims that McLaurin’s constitutional rights were violated by the school district.

“At the ACLU we often deal with schools that mistreat gay children and children who have gay parents, but this is beyond the pale,” said Ken Choe, an attorney for the ACLU Lesbian and Gay Rights Project.

Joe Cook, executive director of the ACLU in Louisiana, said the children of gay and lesbian parents “have the same right as any other children to talk about their families.”

Although no suit has been filed, the ACLU demanded that the school remove all mention of the case from McLaurin’s disciplinary record and apologize to the boy and his mother.

“I was concerned when the assistant principal called and told me my son had said a word so bad that he didn’t want to repeat it over the phone,” said the boy’s mother, Sharon Huff. “But that was nothing compared to the shock I felt when my little boy came home and told me that his teacher had told him his family is a dirty word.”