"One Town's War on Gay Teens"

I believe it is not only a failing of how devout they are but a failing of intelligence. The church and school honestly believe that this policy did not cause suicides, but rather homosexuality itself did. Both the church and the school are genuinely unintelligent or rather refuse to acknowledge intelligence even if it presented. It is the only answer.

What is means to be a Christian depends on who you ask. How intelligent you are does not.

Or you could just write both off to a fascist mindset and be done with it.

 

I believe it's more likely to be the latter, as faith can sometimes cloud the reason of certain people. In this case, it clouded the reasoning of most of these people, and caused them to come to a totally absurd conclusion. As pathetic as it may be, this is what they believe. There's no real way of pulling them away from their faith until it happens to someone who's personally close to them. If it happens within their own family, they're likely to see the error of their ways, or be shocked into further idiocy.

Though this is true, the different branches of Christianity have different standards and different beliefs. This is their belief, and though I can understand their desire to go by what the Bible says, taking it to this sort of extreme is insane.

I could, but I won't.

 

The thing is though, whether they believe in God, the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the Pinky Little Pony is utterly irrelevant in this case, faith isn' t a valid bypass to any law. They are right when they say that those suicides can' t be linked to their passivity : as hard as it is to believe their passivity wasn' t a factor we can' t objectively blame it for those suicides, and we can even less blame the board' s vague recommendations.

I' m appalled however that no one reminded them that, as far as science can tell, homosexuality isn' t an illness, a mental disorder nor a defect of any sort, and that homosexuals have the exact same rights as anyone else. If the teachers behavior is discriminatory in any way, or worse, if they ignore their duty to rescue, then to my knowledge they can very much be hold accountable for that in court.

I know little about school boards and what they are legally allowed to do or not. Their recommendations to "stay neutral regarding homosexuality" and other such bullshit was so vague I' m amazed it changed the teachers behavior in any way. I mean come on, what does that even mean ? Surely boards can' t fire teachers for any bullshit reason they see fit, right ? How come the teachers were less afraid to break laws than to break an absurdly vague board recommendation ? I just can' t compute that, error 404, the requested logic sequence was not found. As for the recommendations to not use the word "homosexual" in any way it' s just plain discriminatory.

BTW I didn' t notice in the article, is that school private, or public (i.e. secular) ?

 

Society is WAY out of control. Religion has taken over in a bad way for examples such as this. It's time that people grow up - even its leaders.

 

True that my friend.

It's the main reason I've stayed out of the religious area as it's because of things like THIS.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, you and I are of a kind.

 

It was a public school, I believe. It was a district and not one school in particular, I thought?

They can indeed fire teachers for any reason they see fit. There is no protection for a teacher. They get paid pennies and can be fired if they A) get accused of bringing up religious views or B) teach kids that homosexuality is normal, depending on which side that area leans towards.

The teachers probably were not aware that they were breaking laws at all. Furthermore, I have so rarely seen or heard of a teacher intervene in bullying of any kids that it would astound me to see it done. If there is any law in place regarding 'rescue', it is less than not enforced; the rule is that it not happen.

 

Well dang, that' s all ... awfully disturbing. The schools I' ve been to suddenly seem paradisaical in contrast (pun intended).

 

I could be wrong, but I have never heard an expansive account to the contrary. Your schools do indeed seem better in general. I consider the US to have one of the worst education systems to have existed, so of course there will be better ones somewhere.

 

I don't know the laws regarding teachers in America, but in the UK we have much greater investment in our teachers and their roles to continue at their job then to fire them at a whim if they so deem it.

I know in my department of Teaching Assistants of special needs kids that we have one member who though has been persistently alienating both students and staff with her belief that any of our kids will be able to achieve the highest grades in the class be cause we are helping them, but in reality the learning difficulties they have mean this isn't possible, not without extra years of teaching whilst others just won't get it. She states straight out when these kids don't get it that they are effectively thick and stupid, none of the kids like her, the staff are annoyed by her habit of not listening to instructions and effectively teaching them away from the class.
These kids have difficulties enough as is when she takes them aside and away from the group, she's effectively isolating them and seem like they are further stupid.

After all this she is blissfully unaware the amount of kids and staff who do not like her, and nothing is beig done about it. Maybe it's the fact we are less direct then North Americans. A Canadian teacher who works at the school is more... confrontational in his views with people, more direct. He says what he sees.

All I can safely say is that the job should be a bit more sacred then what it is. Otherwise you wont get the dedication from those I the job, they simply see it as a stepping stone.