At least one Rossville, TN, parent is questioning school policy after her child's school sent an updated note defining its position on homosexuality.
"My initial reaction is that it was specifically aimed at one person, and I felt very sad about that," said the parent, who did not want to be identified.
Rossville Christian Academy is a private 4K-12 school with about 300 students. The parent believes the school's "ban" on homosexuality is illegally aimed at one gay student. The new policy reads:
"Homosexuality is forbidden in scripture (Romans 1:27, Leviticus 18:22). A staff member or student who promotes, engages in, or identifies himself/herself with such activity through any word or action shall be in violation of this policy. Should the administration determine a violation of this policy, the person involved will be subject to disciplinary action with the possibility of permanent dismissal. Any applicant who is not in compliance with this policy will not be admitted."
It is astounding that this day and age that people can be so incredible ignorant about sexuality, and so fearful that even the mention of homosexuality will somehow increase the number of gays in their community.
You would assume that this ban would be impossible to enforce, but then you must not know Tennessee.
News Channel 3 took the policy to University of Memphis Law Professor Steve Mulroy who said the policy is legal. "It's entirely legal.
There's no federal or state anti-discrimination law that protects gay people," Mulroy said.
Clearly these people are in a blind panic that their children will not be as homophobic as they are unless they completely damage their psyches early on by making EVEN the mention of the gay lifestyle punishable by expulsion.
Personally I would happily see my child expelled from such a close minded, repressive school like this one.
Wait, come to think of it, she was!
And I was NEVER more proud of her.
They better not be getting one tax-payer cent in their system. They better not be using State vouchers diverting funds from real public schools in Tennessee.
ReplyDeleteThen they can live in their dark, stunted and exclusionary live and have the same taste in clothing and lack of housewarming touch like the Palins who can't tell a joke without drawing blood.
Yeah, "Happy Holidays" Christian Americans.
Ridiculous. Ignorant. Asshats!
ReplyDeleteHow soon before the author of the ban is embroiled in a gay sex scandal?
ReplyDeleteIn the late 70s, I went to a private Baptist college that was VERY strict about keeping male and female students separate. In a time that many colleges had some co-ed dorms, this college not only did not have any co-ed dorms, but forbade women from entering the male dorms and the men could only enter the women's dorms during the evening hours, and then only the living/room lobby area. He would state to the guard, er, attendant on duty who he wished to see, and she would use the intercom to announce that "So and so has a caller." The young lady would then go down to meet her man, and they would either visit in the dorm's living room area, go elsewhere on campus (as long as it wasn't to any of the dorms!) or go off-campus.
All this was to keep us "pure," but as you can guess, it did not. Nature and human desire trumps Puritanism, and humans can be very inventive when it comes to getting around stupid rules.
Sorry for the long story, but it supports your assertion that this school's ban will not stop "teh gay!"
Thanks for this Gryphen.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of this quote: "Better to light a single candle than curse the darkness."
Best wishes to you and yours from Toronto, Canada.
Hmm - do they not realize that making some taboo simply increases its allure?
ReplyDeleteBasic psychology that.
These fundamentalists are very strange throwbacks to a time that relished ignorance, hate and suspicion. So sad, so very, very sad.
I am trying my best not to feel anger, because that rarely helps, but I certainly feel pity for children being raised by people such as those setting this policy. Even if they grow up to renounce this nonsense, they will carry with them the shadow of it. The damage, as they say, has been done if even to a small degree because it is the loss of innocent trust.
There is an old country western song that could apply here "You've gotta stand for something, or you'll fall for anything" Does this school want open minded, curious students who want to learn about the entire world, or create people who feel that they have to pretend, in order to live their lives? I wonder how many Ted Haggerds, Karl Roves, Larry Craigs there are at that school, who will live their lives in denial, even marrying and having children to put up a false front? Disgusting. Happy Holidays to all, even homosexuals!! I happen to think we are all equal, and everyone's sexuality was determined before birth.
ReplyDeleteI, too, am proud of your daughter.
ReplyDeleteAnd I live in TN.
I believe that when science finishes showing that some people are born gay, just like some are born female or black, then discrimination laws will expand to cover them.
ReplyDeletePlease don't paint most of TN with this ugly brush. Googling, I found Rossville near the Mississippi border with a population of 380. Every state has plenty of bigots, but has even more accepting people who act intelligently.
This school is self-selected by parents who want their kids to have this type of Christian indoctrination. I feel for the targeted kid whose parents put him or her there.
I have to take exception to your use of the right wing framing by referring to the "gay lifestyle." Being gay is not a lifestyle. Lifestyle refers to the manner in which you choose to live - alone/with others, married/single/coupled, promiscuous/monogamous, hard partier/sedate, etc. Being gay is not a choice. The manner in which we live IS a choice, our lifestyle, but being gay is not one of those choices.
ReplyDeleteO/T
ReplyDeleteOut of the mouths of babe
This video of a little girl, who as the title of the post says: "Pink Stuff: Little Girl In Toy Store Rails Against Gender Stereotypes"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/24/pink-stuff-little-girl_n_1169044.html#comments
Yes Virginia - There is a Santa Claus and there is hope as the younger generations have a foothold in being open-minded!!!
What kind of parents would allow their gay child to attend such a filthy place? When my daughter came out to us, we pulled her out of her "Christian" school as fast as we could. No fucking way would I have left her to fend for herself in such a hell hole. Those parents need to be bitch slapped for even thinking to leave their vulnerable child in such a hateful "school".
ReplyDeleteAlong with Anon 5:21, I too wish Gryphen and IM'ers a Merry Christmas and a safe holiday from Toronto, Canada
ReplyDeleteThey make sure their kids don't use the google too. Otherwise they'd find out what many people think of Rick "man on dog" Santorum.
ReplyDeleteRossville Christian Academy was founded in 1969 according to their website. I wonder who they were protecting their children from in 1969?
Ron Paul thinks this is fine because people won't patronize businesses that practices discrimination.
ReplyDeleteYeah, right.
I'm sure in Tennessee, this school is in real trouble. How many people will flock to this school BECAUSE it discriminates?
Oh, and Ron Paul thinks its perfectly fine to let states like Tennessee get rid of all anti-discrimination laws if enough people in the state want it that way.
One Year After DADT Repeal, Openly Gay Soldiers In Afghanistan Say They’re Better Able To Focus On Mission
ReplyDeletehttp://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2011/12/25/395191/one-year-after-dadt-repeal-openly-gay-soldiers-in-afghanistan-say-theyre-better-able-to-focus-on-mission/
Leviticus also says you can't eat lobster, or pork, or wear clothes made from two different materials.
ReplyDelete"This school is self-selected by parents who want their kids to have this type of Christian indoctrination. I feel for the targeted kid whose parents put him or her there." 6:19
ReplyDeleteThis school was founded by parents who didn't want their kids to go to school with black kids. Google John and Viola McFerren. Before this "Christian Academy" was founded the public schools in this majority black county were segregated. Before the school desegregation lawsuit came the voter registration drive.
"Two local African Americans, John McFerren and Harpman Jameson, led a voter registration drive in Fayette County. Both men were World War II veterans and had no trouble registering. But when they started getting other blacks to register, county officials balked.
The Democratic Party announced they were holding a whites only primary in August 1959. Since the Democratic primary winner always won the election in November, African Americans felt they had been shut out of the vote. In November, the federal government filed a lawsuit against the Fayette County Democratic Party charging them with violation of the 1957 Civil Rights Act.
In response to the lawsuit, in April 1960, Fayette County election officials agreed to allow blacks to register and vote. But they only allowed voter registration one day a week, and only had one registrar working. Even so, blacks stood in line for hours in the hot sun waiting to register.
The white leaders were worried about black registration. There were 9,000 blacks in the county compared to 4,600 whites. They didn’t want blacks being elected to county government positions. A list of the black leaders and every black who registered to vote was drawn up and distributed to white business owners and landowners.
If any of the blacks lived on white lands as sharecroppers, they were forced to leave their house and land. If they came into a white-owned store, they were refused service. John McFerren and his wife, Viola, had three young children. He said he had to drive to the next county to buy milk for his children.
Tent Cities
McFerren, along with the other league members, helped organize “tent cities" for black families that had been kicked off out of their homes. A Quaker group brought quilts and helped build floors for the tents.
As tent cities sprang up along Fayette County highways, others were established in neighboring Haywood County. The tent cities attracted national media. Nashville and Memphis chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People sent food, clothing, and money to the families."
Above excerpt from the Tennessee State Museum website.
http://www.tn4me.org/article.cfm/a_id/117/minor_id/32/major_id/11/era_id/8
The public schools in this county are probably still segregated due to the tax exempt "Christian" schools that were founded to avoid desegeregation.
@Anon 7:27. TN didn't get rid of anti-discrimination laws. The federal law doesn't cover gays. TN, like most states, hasn't added its own law.
ReplyDeleteAnd here I thought Christianity was supposed to be all about grace and love and forgiveness and loving thy enemy and being thine brother's keeper?
ReplyDeleteShows how much I know. Blame my public school education. ;)
@Anon 7:27. TN didn't get rid of anti-discrimination laws. The federal law doesn't cover gays. TN, like most states, hasn't added its own law.
ReplyDelete"Does this school want open minded, curious students who want to learn about the entire world..."
ReplyDeleteLOL it's a Christian/conservative school! Of course they don't want that! They want tiny automatons who will absorb the point of view they're fed and then transmit it to others.
This sort of thing just makes me sad for the Christians who actually DO try to follow what Jesus would do. And yes, I know they're out there, they just don't tend to band together into outspoken groups for some reason. Maybe there are too few of them...
Unfortunately, much of modern day Christianity (not ALL, but much), has taken on a "If you don't look like me, vote like me, think like me, pray like me, go to the same church as me, then you are barely human and going straight to hell" country club attitude. As Anonymous at 8:18 pointed out, it is supposed to be about grace, forgiveness and unconditional love. Sadly, these don't seem to be the message anymore.
ReplyDeleteMy family can relate to the school expulsion thing. My daughter, Bonnie, before she became my son, Aidan, went to a Christian college. During that time she realized she was "just like" those lesbian students, and it was a real "aha" moment for her. She never could figure out why she was different until then. She was pretty depressed about it (having grown up in a bible church where homosexuals were "those awful people"). After assurances from all of the family that it was okay and we still loved her, she worked it out and grew into the person who many years later became Aidan...a wonderful son I might add.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as a college student eventually the school authorities dragged her into the dean's office to confront her and wanted her to name names of other girls who were lesbians. She wouldn't do it and because of that got kicked out of college. This was in Seattle, so it isn't just Tennessee that does this sort of thing.
"News Channel 3 took the policy to University of Memphis Law Professor Steve Mulroy who said the policy is legal. "It's entirely legal.
ReplyDeleteThere's no federal or state anti-discrimination law that protects gay people," Mulroy said."
Yeah, but unfortunately for Mulroy, there ARE federal and state laws permitting freedom of speech and freedom of association. And that pretty much covers it. If a court steps in to enforce the school policy, it would then clearly be a state-enforced action prohibiting freedom of speech and freedom of association. I don't think these people have thought this through. And I do not think the story will end here.
Tennessee can be proud of how one of their PUBLIC schools responded when called on the carpet for discrimination!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/aug/13/aclu-suit-dismissed-after-changes-made-schools/
The ACLU sued Knox County Schools and Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools in May [2009], accusing them of unconstitutionally blocking students from accessing online information about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues through the schools’ Internet service.
In June [2009], Knox County Schools Superintendent Jim McIntyre said the filtering software blocking such sites had not been in compliance with the school system’s policy and the Internet service provider ENA made technical adjustments, making the sites available at schools.
“We applaud the school systems for recognizing the importance of ensuring access to the LGBT Web sites, which provide educational information,” said Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the ACLU of Tennessee. “The original problem was presented by students and staff who alerted us to the fact that only Web sites that portrayed the LGBT community in a negative way were accessible and political and educational Web sites about LGBT issues were not accessible.
“The lawsuit was filed to stop the viewpoint discrimination that was taking place in the school system. We are delighted that the case was resolved in a positive way.”
However, the situation would probably be continuing, today, if not for the students alerting the ACLU :(, and the comments to that story unnervingly equate homosexuality with perversion.
Being a generations-long Tennessean, what I know for sure is that neither of my daughters (one straight, one lesbian) are into bestiality or child molestation.
Bible cherry pickers select the verses that suit their (twisted) needs.
ReplyDeleteAmong other valuable advice, the Bible (capital B) gives the rules for selling a daughter into slavery. Stating this fact stops Bible quoting idiots from annoying me. But, of course, it doesn't work for those too submissive to defend themselves.
Christianity was responsible for centuries of the lunacy of divine right of kings.
ReplyDeleteIt takes a ton of work to defeat power mad Christians (and other religionists).
...this college not only did not have any co-ed dorms, but forbade women from entering the male dorms and the men could only enter the women's dorms during the evening hours, and then only the living/room lobby area. He would state to the guard, er, attendant on duty who he wished to see, and she would use the intercom to announce that "So and so has a caller." The young lady would then go down to meet her man, and they would either visit in the dorm's living room area, ...
ReplyDelete----
Well, I endured the exact same rules at SUNY Potsdam (public college) 1968-72. The Baptists don't have a monopoly on controlling women.
If I was to be out of the dorm between 8-10PM I had to sign my name and state a location. "out" was enough to force an interview with the dorm director who asked me gently "what if your parents died?". My reply of "the guys parents don't die" sent me to the dean.
For exactly the same price of a dorm room, the men and women had vastly different freedoms. Controlling women was the administration's obsession.
Public institution or religious... either way, you have to fight to even get to be equal.
When I say "anti-descriminal laws", I'm not talking about covering homosexuality. I'm talking about anti-discrimination laws that protect women, African Americans, Catholics, etc, etc, etc..
ReplyDeleteThe point is that if Ron Paul had his way, there would be no federal laws protecting "minorities", it would be up to the voters in individual states to pass their own laws.
I lived on the border of North Carolina and Tennessee for a few years. There is plenty of prejudice and de facto discrimination against certain "kinds" of people (including Native Americans).
I know there are many progressive people in Tennessee and I know there are a few pockets in the state that vote heavily for Democrats. But I'm not convinced that the majority of voters in Tennessee would support their own anti-discrimination laws.
"Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings."
ReplyDeleteRichard Stenger
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/3567-science-flies-you-to-the-moon-religion-flies-you-into-buildings
T shirts available various places including my favorite here
http://www.zazzle.com/science_flies_you_to_the_moon_religion_flies_tshirt-235434919817384672
Happy Holidays to all at IM.
Especially Gryphen and Lou Sarah.
Funny how these pseudo-Christians think it's A-Okay to pick and choose the Old Testament "laws" they happen to believe in, and ignore the rest. Personally, I truly wish these Christians-in-name-only would throw away the Old Testament and actually read the New one. Their world (and ours) would be much improved.
ReplyDelete"God" and "gay" are not, and NEVER have been mutually exclusive.
ReplyDeleteSheesh. I guess conditional love is perfectly fine in some peoples universe.
ladies and gentlemen I give you BigoTV
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/-lQMjOdNks4
Someone should invent a placebo "anti teh gay" vaccine, you know, to level the playing field for everyone to be allowed the same rights, priveledges and laws these vehemently pro-heterosexual bigots.
ReplyDeleteThe "cherry picking" christians who pick and choose dogma and bible verses, written down after centuries of being orally passed down from generation to generation. The story involoves a man, who hangs around with a bunch of fishermen, has a few female friends, and lives at home with his mom and dad waaaaaay past the age of 18, who never married had children etc etc etc.
kind of makes you wonder where the bigots get the "stereotypes" they praise, worship, and go out of their way to slam and continue the "stereotypes"
To me, homosexuals are created MORE in God's image than everyone else.
Anyway,
Happy Holiday, Merry Christmas to Gryphen, his daughter, his family, and the posters here at IM. May you always have what you need and someone to share it all with.