Homosexuality, Free Speech: Pick One

Count on California schools, where liberals are firmly in control, to punish free speech. From WorldNetDaily, May 3, 2007:

At least another 75 students have been suspended from school in California for wearing shirts that expressed their biblically-based opposition to homosexuality, and the district that, as WND reported, has been imposing the punishments, says those quotations aren't necessarily acceptable because they are from God's Word.

That's the verdict from San Juan Unified School District Superintendent Steven Enoch, according to lawyers for the Pacific Justice Institute, which is working on behalf of the students.

The suspensions were begun on April 18 when the homosexual lobby-supported "Day of Silence" was observed in public schools in California – and across the nation.

An unknown number of students but at least dozens and perhaps hundreds of students were suspended for that day when they arrived wearing T-shirts proclaiming the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality, and PJI lawyer Kevin Snider was launched into action.

Those disagreements have been resolved in one or two cases, but continue escalating in others, including at San Juan, where another 50 students were suspended on Monday for wearing the shirts, and there were reports that several dozen more were punished yesterday.

Peter Ganchenko, a deacon in a local church, reported yesterday that "approximately 25 more students have been suspended for expressing their religious beliefs on campus … at San Juan High School."

"The [San Juan] school is taking the position that if it's offensive [to anyone] you can't wear it," Snider told WND. "The school superintendent [said] just because something comes from the Bible doesn't give it carte blanche to be acceptable in schools."

The students have been wearing T-shirts proclaiming their Biblical views, he said. "They had a quote from Jesus, 'If you love me you will keep my commandments."

The students also wore shirts with other Bible verses, including 1 Corinthians 6:9-10: "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God."

Other slogans included the quotation from the Old Testament Law that speaks of homosexuality as an "abomination," he said. But the school also allows T-shirts promoting homosexuality, too, with messages such as "I'm gay," he noted.

Freedom of speech. Homosexuality. California schools seem to be saying, "Pick one."