School Protest at South Windsor High School
This is a bit close to home. South Windsor is a neighboring town from where I live. Yesterday, four students wore shirts that said “Adam & Even NOT Adam and Steve”. At first everything went ok until they were confronted by other students during a class. The four students were sent home.
They felt that was unfair because on Tuesday of the same week, the gay straight alliance at the school had a rally at the school. Apparently, the gay-straight alliance had signs that read, “Come out, come out wherever you are.”
These four students feel that they were unfairly singled out because they were asked to remove their T-shirts (which the didn’t do), or ordered to go home. They said that members of the gay-straight alliance were not asked to leave the school. I can see a lawsuit brewing here.
It’s a difficult thing - free speech. Personally, I want to say that what happened was just because they were carrying messages that many view as being intolerant and hateful in nature. I don’t believe that is something that belongs at a school. I also feel that the four students who were asked to go home have a right to voice their views on this. Perhaps they didn’t choose the best way to do it. Perhaps they should have complained about the gay-straight alliance on Tuesday instead of voicing it in this fashion.
That’s the really difficult thing about free speech. It isn’t easy. You have to be willing to defend someone’s right to voice their opinion, even if you find that opinion to be repugnant.
They should have the right to voice their opinion, but I agree with the school in sending them home since it was starting to cause problems in the classroom. The safety of the students much come first.
It there was a way for them to voice their opinion in a safe and respectful way last Tuesday, I think it would have been awesome for the school to facilitate a discussion on that. School is about learning and more times than not on emotionally charged issues such as this, people end up shouting at each other and no one really listens.
As a final note... If those four students really wanted to understand the other side and to put into context the issues they have with gays, perhaps they should attend a few meetings of the gay-straight alliance. It could be a valuable lesson to them to hear what fellow students go through who happen to be gay. Then, if they still feel the way they do now, at least it will be more informed.
Some students in South Windsor don’t agree with gay marriage and they sported t-shirts showing others how they feel. But when they wore those shirts to school, the trouble really started.
Because of their religious convictions they believe gay marriage is wrong. So four students at the South Windsor High School wore t-shirts saying “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”
“We wore them to protest a gay straight alliance rally that they had on Tuesday where they wore signs,” said sophomore David Grimaldi. “They had things that said come out, come out where ever you are.” [...]
The principal says it interfered with learning, but Grimaldi and his friends say it wasn’t their fault. Grimaldi says they didn’t protest or yell when students from the gay straight alliance wore offensive signs.
“I was being yelled at and I was being called names I didn’t appreciate, and profanities were being yelled at me and I was very upset,” Shinfield said.
“School is a place that’s supposed to be a safe zone. it’s a time to learn, not to create controversy,” says another male student. (source)
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Kevin,
I happen to agree, although I don't agree with their message, that the boys have the right to their beliefs and they have the right to say it.
I believe that "free speech" is a difficult issue for this country. It's not easy. If I'm willing to have free speech, then I must defend those who want to talk about views contrary to what I believe, no matter how repulsive those ideas are.
So, I defend the gay students for defending gay marriage. I also defend the students who wore the shirts. Do I support them wearing the shirts to school and stirring up such emotions? Well, that's debatable. I think there is something to be said for the consideration of others. If the message is one of intolerance, there are always consequences to be paid. In this case, the boys wore the shirts to school, which caused some of the students to become "emotionally distraught". That interrupts the learning process, and some would argue it was a safety issue.
What I think would have been a better way to do it for the school, would be to turn all of that into a learning process. If there could have been civil dialog about why people feel the way they do about this issue, a greater understanding may have been accomplished on both sides of the issue. That would have been very valuable in terms of the learning process.
Having said that, I don't know if it was possible for the school to have done that. I can fully understand how the gay students would feel about what the boys said and did. The ability to form relationships with people you love cuts to the very core of this society and indeed, the quality of life itself. Today, we have a society that is saying that the relationships that gays have are not as good as straight relationships. Then, you have these boys wear shirts that basically say, based on the Bible, that they shouldn't have these relationships.
Now, equate that to segregation. How would black students feel if the boys wore shirts that had two drinking fountains on the shirt. Above one fountain, one said "Whites Only". Above the other fountain, it said "Coloreds". What would the reaction of the students be today on this issue?
Free speech is free speech, and I defend that. But, there are consequences to how you exercise your free speech rights. I think the boys learned that lesson well. If they want to make there feelings known, there were better ways to do it. As for the gay students, you don't have to worry about them being put in their place. They are told and reminded every single day of their lives that they are less than equal to straights. So relax, they are still inferior to you. :)
And.... a question for YOU, Kevin. Is it "OK" to be gay?
I live in south windsor and know thoose kids. They were sent home for starting a 'riot" but if the supporters of gay couples wouldn't talk trash about it, it would of have happned. Now we have to have a school wide dissucion about why it is ok to be gay. Our school supports one side of an issue and not another. Civil Rights lawyers all over the state said they would sue the school but the kids said because they got the RIGHT point across. Even though it ment being sent home!
You know the thing that gets me more than anything else? They use one or two passages from the Bible and hold that up as the reason they want to keep gay couples from ever having marriage.
What they leave out is that if you really believe in and live by what the Bible says, you can't just pick and choose what it is that you want to believe in. This is the single biggest fallacy that these people have. These students don't want to allow us to be married because the say that the Bible does not allow it. But, do those students also believe in divorce? The Bible doesn't. Do those students believe in slavery? The Bible does!
People can not find any other reason for hate so they use the bible,let them come forward and say what they really think about us,stop using the bible as a sheild,tell us why two people in love and pay taxes like everyone else can not have the same rights as straight couples,i was not alive back then so who is to say there was not a adam and steve,maybe they had not came out of the closet yet,from all the pictures i saw of the garden of eden back then there had to be a steve.