At Grissom High back in April a JROTC instructor decided it would be a good idea to preach to a student about the evils of homosexuality after that student made a comment about wanting to move to San Francisco after she graduated.

As regular readers know, I do not typically speak publicly about personnel issues, and I almost never speak against teachers. Honestly, there are too many people gunning for our teachers as it is now.

However, when a teacher crosses a line such as attempting to indoctrinate a student with his personal religious beliefs, silence will not suffice.

Back in the early 80s a “preacher” in my denomination infamously once said, “God doesn’t hear the prayers of a Jew.” In response to that, a true prophet and church history professor in my denomination, Dr. E. Glenn Hinson responded, “Such is the stuff of which holocausts are made.” (Shakespeare got it wrong. When the revolution comes, the first thing the victors do is kill all the historians, not the lawyers.)

Dr. Hinson only got it half right: it is the silence of people who know better of which holocausts are made, too.

There was a time in college when I stood silently while my gay roommate read a message that had been left on our dorm room door by a hate-filled, anonymous, “Christian.”

I was ashamed of my silence then, and I swore to myself that I would not be silent anymore.

So while my primary focus has been on the discrimination that the school board is enacting against SPED, let me be clear on this matter: if it’s okay to discriminate against one child of one demographic, it’s okay to discriminate against any child of any demographic.

Even mine.

Even yours.

A teacher is certainly free to hold whatever religious beliefs that he or she wishes to hold, but that teacher is not free to force his or her views on a captive audience of students. That crosses a line that should never be crossed in a public school.

Our public schools are wonderful places where people of varied backgrounds, religions, faiths, ideologies, races, genders, and yes, sexual orientations come together to learn from their teachers and from each other. In short, our schools are a cross-section of our society. They represent a safe place for our kids to learn to live on this increasingly small planet together.

I am a Christian. I am a Baptist. I am an ordained minister (although my calling is to the classroom rather than a pulpit). I am a Southerner who was born, raised, educated, and am raising children in the “buckle of the Bible belt.”

I believe that the Bible is the Word of God; however, I am completely convinced of the following: God loves us all regardless of our sexual orientation. God wants us to love each other regardless of our sexual orientation. Our sexual orientation is a gift from God, and being gay or straight is not a sin.

However, hatred and discrimination are. And hatred and discrimination in the name of God are as well.

But the worst, the absolute worst, is to stand by silently while a child of God suffers at the hands of another. As I know first hand, that takes a lifetime to undo. And it’s why I speak out now.

This is what I believe. And I won’t be ashamed to say so, anymore.

While the district claims that this issue has been resolved, they won’t tell anyone, including the parent, what resolution they arrived at. The story by Nick Lough at WAFF-48 states at its conclusion that, “a district spokesperson said they’re not allowed to comment on this story because of confidentiality laws between the school and the parent.”

Do I need to point out that this, once again, makes no logical sense? It instead sounds exactly like many of the non-answers I’ve received in the past. It sounds like a district and a superintendent refusing to do the right thing of protecting all of our students. Sadly, there are some students in our schools who don’t matter nearly as much as others.

It would seem that Dr. Wardynski needs to read his Dr. Seuss a bit more closely.

The post Silent No Longer appeared first on Geek Palaver.

My hometown has been on my mind a lot lately. It’s hard to say exactly why, but really, does it matter? That’s what hometowns are for: to remind us who we are, where we are from, where we might go to. Hometowns connect us to our families, our histories, our selves. And they remind us that we’re often WAY too big for our britches.

Hometowns have a way of reminding us of our childish ways. Like when we would drive by the brick wall fence at the end of Brannen Street, barking out the window so that Cujo would burst through the holes in the fence to eat the uninitiated rider in the back seat. Yes, this is the language of entertainment in my small hometown. In short, there wasn’t much to do.

I grew up in Statesboro, Georgia: a farming town that developed into a small college town when Erk Russell revived the football program at Georgia Southern in the 80s. “I’m going to the country . . . baby do you want to go?” The weeks were a holding pattern between Friday night football, Saturday football, and church all day Sunday.

Church actually filled much more of my time than just on Sunday. As difficult as it is to believe for many of my friends today, I was easily describable as a fundamentalist when I lived in Statesboro. Of course, I didn’t describe myself that way there. There I was just a “good kid.” It just so happened that being a good kid in the Boro, and especially at Eastern Heights Baptist Church, meant being a fundamentalist. I was well known for all the things that I did not do.  I didn’t smoke. I didn’t drink. I didn’t listen to rock (unless it was Christian Rock, and even that was . . . lets just say it was questionable.)

I was so well known as someone who didn’t do things, that on the rare occasion that I did do something, like say drop the F-bomb in choral rehearsal at school, others got in trouble instead of me. (Sorry about that Brian . . .)

Like Jenny Joseph, I saw my job as setting “a good example for the children” even though I was a child myself.

This was how I came to identify and understand myself. After years of being something of an outcast at school and especially on the sports fields of the Rec Center, I found a place where I belonged, and I threw myself into that identity with abandon. I had been the outsider, the alien, the stranger for so long that I didn’t notice when Eastern Heights’ pastor began a campaign of abuse against those who were different from us.

I am grateful to Eastern Heights Baptist Church for a great many things. They taught me that I was important and loved. As Bill Moyers says of his home Baptist church, they taught me everything that I knew about democracy and fairness. They taught me the importance of standing and speaking up for what I believe in. They encouraged me to sing, to preach, to read and study (the Bible anyway), and to love. This last was the most important, and it is why it took me so long to realize that that love they were preaching didn’t really apply to everyone.

In particular, it didn’t apply to the “homosexual perverts” that Rev. Don Roberts preached against so often that we never heard one noun without the other.

Because I was on the inside, I forgot what it was to be on the outside. Because they accepted me, I failed to notice the hatred and the venom being spewed in the name of Christ. I forgot that Jesus had spent his entire life reminding people that the outsiders, the least of these, were the ones that he had walked with, talked with, eaten with, and loved. And at no time did he call them names.

Look, my purpose here isn’t to say that Christians must view homosexuality as ordained by God. Rev. Roberts was free to believe that homosexuality is a sin. He was free to preach that homosexuality is a sin. Eastern Heights was free to teach that it is a sin. (For the record, since I didn’t choose to be straight—it’s just a part of who I am and who God made me to be; I don’t believe that people who are gay chose to be gay—it’s just a part of who they are and who God made them to be.) That’s not what this posting is about. What it is about is a reminder that the words and the language that we use matters.

It’s wrong to abuse people in the name of God, and we Christians should stop.

This is one reason why I am wearing purple tomorrow on 10/20/2010: to show that not all Christians hate those who are different. I ask that you join me in wearing purple as well. Even if it means that you’re going to wear something that you don’t normally wear. It’s good to remember to identify with the outsider. It’s good to put away childish ways. It’s good to remember who you are and to stand for justice and fairness. It’s good to stand with the least of these our brothers and sisters.

Tomorrow, when I am older, I shall wear purple.

The post “I Shall Wear Purple” appeared first on Geek Palaver.