YOU’RE GAY? A LITTLE ENFORCED READING FROM THE BIBLE SHOULD STRAIGHTEN YOU RIGHT OUT….Via Arthur Silbur comes this disgusting story about some poor junior high school kid in Little Rock who told a few of his friends he was gay and then found himself the target of a flurry of abuse. Not from other kids, mind you, but from his teachers. Here’s what the ACLU says:
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One teacher called a conference with McLaughlin’s parents and the principal because she objected to his being open about being gay. During the meeting, the principal concurred that she was opposed to McLaughlin talking at school about being gay.
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A different teacher ordered McLaughlin not to discuss his sexual orientation, saying that she found it “sickening,” and later called his mother to complain about his homosexuality.
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School officials preached their religious views on homosexuality and forced him to read aloud from the Bible in clear violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment. This was done as punishment after McLaughlin, who is himself a Christian, disagreed with a teacher for calling him “abnormal” and “unnatural.”
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In violation of McLaughlin’s free speech rights, the school suspended him for two days for telling other students about being made to read the Bible in school. The principal and assistant principal also told McLaughlin that if he told any of his friends why he was suspended, they would recommend that he be expelled.
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McLaughlin is not even allowed to participate in typical teenage conversations about crushes. In January he was disciplined for talking between classes with a female friend about a boy they both considered “cute.” He was disciplined; his friend was not.
Unfortunately, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is a subscriber-only newspaper, and no one else seems to have covered this story yet, so there’s no telling if there’s another side to this story. Frankly, though, I sort of doubt it.
