Constantly bringing up stuff Jesus actually said, or didn't say, is unfair to"good Christians" struggling to keep paying lip service to him

Plus: Gearing up for this year's Day of Silence to fight to fight anti-LGBT bullying and harassment

Update: Wacky Waynesville schoolfolk say student can have free-speech rights, for one day only

Today's DWT News Quiz Stumper:
What's wrong with these T-shirts?

"No representatives from the school returned multiple requests for comment."

-- Lila Shapiro, in a HuffPost post about
an Ohio high school's banning of the T-shirts

by Ken

You've seen the T-shirts. Now here's the question: Why would good Christians go ballistic over a T-shirt worn by a high school student saying "JESUS IS NOT A HOMOPHOBE"?

(a) Those "good Christians" hate Jesus and everything he stood for like poison, with every fiber of their beings, and it makes it harder for them to pay their customary service lip to him when people -- especially, God help us, teenage people -- have the gall to bring up stuff he actually said and did, or in this case didn't say or do.

(b) Those "good Christians" are kind of sketchy about what this Jesus fellow said and did but are pretty sure he must have hated all the stuff that they hate.

(c) Those "good Christians" know for damn sure that Jesus was too a homophobe and damn proud of it; he just never happened to get around to mentioning it. Probably it was always on the tip of his tongue. But of course he hated the homos! How could he not when he devoted his short life to laying the groundwork for an authoritarian institution that would blossom into a worldwide sociopathic cult of ignorance and hate-mongering?

(d) Such a T-shirt is "sexual in nature and therefore indecent and inappropriate in a school setting."

ANSWER: Although (a), (b), and (c) are all obviously true, while (c) is just as obviously, even moronically false, the official answer appears to be -- you got it! -- (c)! (Are "good Christians" generally speaking morons?) I say "appears to be (c)," however, because there's confusion among the objectors as to the actual nature of the objection. More on this in a moment.

The student in question, 16-year-old Maverick Couch, was told by Waynesville (Ohio) High School principal Randy Gebhardt back in April 2011 (as recounted by Lila Shapiro on HuffPost) that:

he would have to remove the shirt because it "had to do with religion" and "religion and state have to be separate," Couch recalled. Gebhardt later told Couch's mother Tonya that the T-shirt was "disrupting the educational process," according to the lawsuit.

"The lawsuit," against principal Gebhardt and the Waynesville school district was filed on Maverick Couch's behalf yesterday by Lambda Legal. There is, apparently, no organizational support in Maverick's community for gay and lesbian students, so it's only since his case became highly public that orgs like Lambda Legal and the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) have come to his aid.

Now on the one hand we have this story about the T-shirt being inappropriately "sexual," which is obvious nonsense. On the other hand, going back to that fateful day in Apriil 2011 when Maverick was summoned to principal Gebhardt's office,

Gebhardt said he would have to remove the shirt because it "had to do with religion" and "religion and state have to be separate," Couch recalled. Gebhardt later told Couch's mother Tonya that the T-shirt was "disrupting the educational process," according to the lawsuit.

The "religion and state have to be separate" argument is adorable, given that probably 99.9 percent of the "good Christians" who support principal Gebhardt's, er, position, and quite possibly principal Gebhardt himself, believe the exact opposite: that atheistic liberal commies are trampling on their God-given freedom to rub other people's noses in their religion any goddamn place they choose, and more than anyplace else right there in the schools.

The part about "disrupting the educational process" is pretty cute too, because it appears that the only one doing that was principal Gebhardt. In fact, one of the most interesting things about young Maverick's story i the un-disruptiveness that resulted when he decided to participate in GLSEN's annual April Day of Silence, "a day of action in which students across the country vow to take a form of silence to call attention to the silencing effect of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in schools."
Lila Shapiro writes:

At [Maverick's] school, which lacks any organization devoted to the gay community, he is one of few openly gay students. So, he alone was marking the day, wearing the T-shirt and a "No Hate" message written on his cheek in marker. He carried a white board so he could write messages (in lieu of talking) to communicate with teachers and classmates.

And he was surprised by the response.

All day long, Couch was pleased and surprised by how supportive his classmates and teachers were, he said. "Some people I don't even talk to on a daily basis came up to me and said, 'It's really cool you're wearing that shirt,'" Couch told The Huffington Post. "I did get a couple of negative comments like, 'You're a faggot,' but that happens. The support is what mattered." . . .

[N]egative reaction to his shirt came from only a couple of students and did not disrupt his classes, Couch maintains. The school has remained silent about the issue in press coverage.

Lambda Legal staff attorney Christopher R. Clark stressed to HuffPost that in the absence of significant disruption, there isn't even any legal issue.

"This isn't a gray area where we're trying to develop new law; it's really relying on law that has been settled for decades," Clark said.

Pointing to cases in which the Supreme Court has ruled favor of students' freedom of expression, "Students have the right to express themselves," Clark said. "The law doesn't consider it a substantial disruption if other people don't like the message."

Clark told HuffPost that 95 percent of cases like this are resolved just by sending a letter to the school.


WE'RE IN COUNTDOWN MODE FOR THIS
YEAR'S DAY OF SILENCE: FRIDAY, APRIL 20

The goal is to break the national silence on anti-LGBT bullying and harassment. GLSEN has loads of "Info + Resources," including guidance on the associated legal issues, and there's all kinds of information available online, including "Organize your own Day of Silence Action in 6 Easy Steps!"

Here's the TO LEARN MORE link, but if you want to win the T-shirt for your video, or to have your story of what the Day of Silence means to you chosen as one of three to be featured on the GLSEN website (for which the winners also get free "Day of Silence gear"), you'll have to act fast -- though I can't tell you exactly how fast, as the deadlines are given online as "11:59PM on Friday, April 8th," but April 8 is Sunday. (This Friday is the 6th.) There's more time to win a T-shirt by tweeting what the Day of Silence means to you during the "2 Weeks of Tees on Twitter," which runs through April 13.


UPDATE: THAT WACKY WAYNESVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT SAYS
MAVERICK CAN EXPRESS HIS OPINION -- BUT ONLY ON THE 20TH!

This just in from Lambda Legal, which is representing Maverick Couch:

(Cincinnati, OH, Wednesday, April 4, 2012) -- Today, in a status conference with Judge Barrett of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Ohio, the Wayne Local School District agreed to permit Maverick Couch to wear his T-shirt bearing the slogan "Jesus Is Not a Homophobe" on one day only, GLSEN’s National Day of Silence, while the case proceeds. The Wayne Local School District made this concession after Lambda Legal filed suit and a motion for a temporary restraining order on Tuesday on behalf of Maverick, an openly gay junior who was threatened with suspension if he wore the T-shirt.

"We're glad that Maverick is able to wear his shirt on April 20th," said Christopher Clark, Senior Staff Attorney for Lambda Legal. "However, a student's First Amendment rights are not restricted to one day of the year -- we will continue to fight until Maverick is allowed to express who he is on any day he chooses." . . .

Here's the Lambda Legal website link for the case.

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