Rant on.<\/p>\n
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In the week before last week, a student at a school in Madisonville, Tennessee wore a shirt to school supporting the rights of gay students.\u00a0 On the front it said, “Gay Straight Alliance:\u00a0 We’ve got your back” and on the back were the initials of the gay-supporting organization, GSA.\u00a0 It’s a tradition at the school to wear a shirt and have fellow students sign it, and this student did, in fact, gather dozens of signatures.\u00a0 (The article makes it sound like an annual thing around this time of year, but it did not go into specifics.)\u00a0 The student had been trying to establish a chapter of the GSA at his school, but the principal, Maurice Moser, refused to allow it.\u00a0 This escalated on Friday when the principal called him in as school was starting and demanded the student turn the shirt inside out or replace it.\u00a0 The student, Chris Sigler, refused, choosing to call his mom about it.\u00a0 His mother was fine with him continuing to wear it.<\/p>\n
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Now things got bad.\u00a0 Later in the day, the principal went to the student’s classroom, had everyone but the student leave the class (according to the story, the student’s sister was there and refused to leave) and then possibly assaulted the student.\u00a0 There’s a conflicting reports on that, but Mr. Sigler claims Mr. Moser pushed him.\u00a0 This brings an interesting witness into the picture who, over the course of three comments on the news story, gave her account of what happened.<\/p>\n
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The witness–identifying herself as “Chelsea” in the comments–states somebody called the classroom (apparently the classrooms have phones) and spoke with Mr. Sigler, asking him to come to the office.\u00a0 Mr. Sigler refused.\u00a0 An assistant principal came to the classroom then and asked him to come to the office and again Mr. Sigler refused.\u00a0 The principal then called the classroom and after saying “Hello” Mr. Sigler hung up on him.\u00a0 Finally, the principal came to the classroom, got everybody out, and the confrontation happened.\u00a0 According to Chelsea, Mr. Sigler got into Mr. Moser’s face more than vice versa.<\/p>\n
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Okay, so now we have some confusing information about what happened.\u00a0 One thing should be clear, though, and that is the principal, regardless of whether he physically assaulted the student or not, did not take an appropriate course of action.\u00a0 I’ll start by saying a school administrator’s job, and the principal’s most of all, is to support the students, even when you have a personal dislike of what they’re doing.\u00a0 If it doesn’t break a law or rule, it should be supported.\u00a0 Certainly something like the GSA, which helps students deal with one of the most difficult parts of their life, should be given full administrative support.<\/p>\n
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The principal should never have gone to the classroom.\u00a0 And when he did, he should never have asked for the students to leave.\u00a0 That, quite simply, is asking for trouble.\u00a0 He was out of control–very much not<\/em> in control of the situation, at least–and this is a demonstration of that fact.\u00a0 The first call to the class should not have been to the student but the teacher.\u00a0 That should have been the only call.\u00a0 The teacher would then have the responsibility of getting the problem student to the office.\u00a0 If the student refused, the teacher could have called back and the parents notified to come get their student.\u00a0 Not for wearing a T-shirt but for refusing to follow the instructions of school administrators.\u00a0 If you’re told to go to the principal’s office, you go to the principal’s office.\u00a0 Mr. Sigler certainly erred in his refusal to do so, but Mr. Moser’s reaction was, in my opinion, far worse.\u00a0 Mr. Moser is, after all, the adult, and should have responded in a more mature fashion.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Then there’s Chelsea’s statement.\u00a0 She opens up by ranting about the gays in the school.\u00a0 She says she has gay friends, and that the ones who get bullied are the ones who go around “announcing what they did over the weekend with their boyfriends.”\u00a0 As another comment pointed out, this is different from the straight couples how?\u00a0 She brings up God and His judgment, etc., which, quite frankly, has no bearing on the issue at hand.\u00a0 It’s nice you have religion, but this is a problem with discipline and how the school is enforcing it.\u00a0 Chelsea states the school rules do say that students aren’t allowed to wear shirts which are offensive and that she’s “pretty sure” the shirt is offensive.\u00a0 In what way, exactly?\u00a0 There are no words considered to be swear words.\u00a0 No suggestion of sex or violence.\u00a0 Just a statement of support for a national student organization which helps kids discovering their GLBT identities have a safe and supportive environment at school.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I am sick and tired of this shit.\u00a0 I really am.\u00a0 I ranted last year about the girl who couldn’t take her lesbian date to prom.\u00a0 That story also mentioned a young man who was not allowed to wear dresses to school and eventually had to move.\u00a0 The examples go on and on of kids who are going through tough times not just thanks to other kids but also school administrators, teachers, etc., who refuse to support them in their most needful hour.\u00a0 It’s the sixties all over again, but with gays instead of interracial problems.\u00a0 Let’s get over this crap, please?\u00a0 Let’s accept people, young folks particularly, for who they choose to be.\u00a0 If they’re not out trying to hurt people, let them be who they are.\u00a0 If you don’t like it, don’t be friends with them.\u00a0 Better yet, get to know them better so you have a better understanding.\u00a0 Dislike them for being mean or cruel or a jerk or something, but not for who they choose to love.\u00a0 That’s not a reason for dislike, it’s an excuse for hatred.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Rant off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rant on. In the week before last week, a student at a school in Madisonville, Tennessee wore a shirt to school supporting the rights of gay students.\u00a0 On the front it said, “Gay Straight Alliance:\u00a0 We’ve got your back” and on the back were the initials of the gay-supporting organization, GSA.\u00a0 It’s a tradition […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=692"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":693,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692\/revisions\/693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}