Posted on 11/19/2004 5:57:59 AM PST by Lindykim
Posted on Sun, Nov. 07, 2004 ACLU gets involved in teen gay-themed T-shirts case By STEVE ROCK Kansas City Star
WEBB CITY, Mo. - Whether the townsfolk know it or not, Webb City, in the southwest corner of Missouri, has become a battleground in the gay rights movement. The debate hasn't yet reached front-burner status at such places as the Bradbury Bishop Deli on the downtown square. Scores of locals know very little or nothing about it.
But that could change. Soon. Twice in the last two weeks, Brad Mathewson, a junior at Webb City High School, was instructed by school officials to change T-shirts that bore gay rights themes. The first of the two incidents prompted Mathewson to contact the American Civil Liberties Union.
Now the ACLU is actively involved. The organization has engaged a local lawyer, shipped out news releases en masse and met with school officials. Mathewson said he had been contacted by representatives of "Good Morning America," although a spokesman for the TV show would neither confirm nor deny that. Anti-gay preacher Fred Phelps is promising to make an appearance in Webb City this month. School district officials said enforcing the school's strict dress code wasn't about gay rights or free speech. They said it was about preserving a positive, structured learning environment that was void of unwanted distractions. "If disruption comes for whatever reason, you try to bridle that," district superintendent Ron Lankford said.
So divided are the two sides that Mathewson missed a week of school. Mathewson called it a suspension, but school officials declined to specifically discuss his situation.
For now, Mathewson is back in class. He returned Tuesday after the ACLU's lawyer conferred with school officials. Mathewson has been instructed by school officials not to wear any gay-themed attire but instead to blend in with the other 1,000 or so students at the high school.
Mathewson, 16, said he wasn't sure he wants to make that commitment. He said school officials told him that the shirts might offend other students, that they could be disruptive, that they could even leave him in danger of being beaten up by intolerant classmates.
Mathewson doesn't buy any of it, at least not the latter two reasons. And if the shirts are offensive to others, well, that's too bad. "I just want to wear my shirt," he said.
So the battle forges on. Chris Hampton, public education associate for the ACLU, called the school's actions "viewpoint-based censorship." She disputes the superintendent's suggestions that the ACLU is a bully, that it wants only to embarrass the high school until it makes a change that, quite simply, it doesn't want to make. "It's quite the opposite," she said. "We're standing up for high school students whose schools are bullying them.
"They've been stomping on this kid's rights." It all started Oct. 20 when Mathewson, who had recently moved to town from Fayetteville, Ark., went to school wearing a shirt from his previous school. The black T-shirt had the words "FHS (Fayetteville High School) Gay/Straight Alliance" on the front and a message on the back that was supportive of gay rights.
"They told me to change it, turn it inside out or go home," Mathewson said. He initially turned it inside out, then decided to leave school and talk with his mother. He was upset, and he didn't think the school was within its rights. Eventually, he called a teacher from his previous school and asked for advice. The teacher told him to contact the ACLU.
He did. He did something else, too. About a week later, using markers and a bit of vengeance, he scrawled the words "I'm gay, and I'm proud!" on a plain T-shirt and wore it to school. He was there less than 10 minutes, he said, before school officials approached him again and told him he couldn't wear the shirt. He left school again.
"I didn't even make it to class," he said. Some Webb City residents say they aren't surprised by the reaction of school officials, that this Bible Belt, blue-collar town of 9,000 or so people is slow to accept change.
Scott Cadwallader, 49, grew up in Webb City. He moved away for a while but has been back now for three years. This week, while washing clothes at Webb City Laundry downtown, he said a lot of local people "are totally against gay marriage."
"Personally, I'm just accepting of the way people are," he said. "But most of the people I've talked to don't want that kind of thing here." Count Dave Carey among them. Carey lives in nearby Oronogo, Mo., as does Mathewson, and was recently at a downtown gun and pawn shop. Referring to gays, but calling them a more derogatory term, he said, "I don't like them."
For his part, Mathewson embraces his sexuality. He has known since he was a little boy that he was gay, he said, and chuckles when his mom suggests it might be a "phase" he's going through. "He's still my son," said Marion Mathewson, Brad's mother. "He will always be my son. I stand behind him, and I support him."
The irony is that Mathewson wasn't originally trying to make a statement, that he just happened to throw on that black T-shirt the day this all started. It wasn't the first time he had worn it at Webb City High, either.
"I wasn't causing a disruption before," Mathewson said. "It sure is causing a disruption now." What's more, he said he had seen anti-gay bumper stickers on notebooks at school. This week, he said, he even saw a student wearing a shirt that said, "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve."
Lankford said those students, like Mathewson, were asked to turn their shirts inside out or otherwise conceal those messages. Either way, Mathewson's confrontation with school officials initially left him frustrated, even mad.
Now? "It's exciting," he said. "It gives you an adrenaline rush. And I like the attention. I can't lie about that."
Others don't like it. Barbara Pope, 26, who graduated from Webb City High in 1997, said she hoped Webb City wouldn't become known for this one controversy. "Webb City people are tolerant of just about anything," she said.
Pope said the brouhaha was probably more about a dress code than anything else. She said she remembered how tough it was when she attended the school: no shorts, no Starter jackets, no flannel shirts tied around the waist. "They're just very strict when it comes to clothing," she said.
And that's the point Lankford makes. He doesn't apologize for the school's strict dress code, for the ban on hats, spaghetti-strap tops, piercings anywhere besides the ear, tattered clothing, even "items that fail to conform to accepted standards of modesty."
And Lankford isn't afraid of making strict interpretations because the dress code includes a line that says clothes must not be "disruptive, distracting or inappropriate for the classroom."
"It's our responsibility to do the very best job we can to make sure we have an orderly environment for learning every single day," he said. "I think we've been very good at that."
© 2004 KRT Wire and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.kentucky.com
The godless Left, whose worldview is premised on the mythological notion that "nonlife-bearing matter is all there is" {matter is the 'first principle"/ creator of man}, believe therefore that 'man is all there is". Or more precisely, "force of power" is all there is.
Since their worldview is premised upon all things which are oppositional/contrary to the Creator-based worldview, then they must take the stance that there is no fixed gender, as stated by God. Instead, they believe there are numerous 'fluid sexual orientations' which man can freely move into and out of in pursuit of sexual fulfillment {Queer Theory} which they view as a human right.
Keeping in mind what they "believe" {by blind faith} to be true {their worldview}, we can expect that the homosexual rights agenda is but the opening gambit in their pursuit of complete sexual license and the degendering of mankind. And as the war between these two antithetical worldviews intensifies, we on the Right can expect that as the godless Left becomes more frustrated by the strategic counter-moves of the Right, the Left may well begin to actualize the "force by power" notion.
ping!
It is time to be ACTIVELY agaisnt the ACLU and its minions the scumbag lawyers.
I really am beginning to believe that any lawyer that takes up an ACLU cause should be run out of town immediately and forcefully.
Let the PEOPLE speak --- not the scumbag lawyers
Will the ACLU offer the same protections to Christian students who openly express the opposing view-point? I'm not gonna hold my breath.
Encouraging teenage sexual activity in any form is not appropriate at any school.
Gays don't want "tolerance:" they want approval, endorsement; they want to actively promote and recruit normal people to their perverted "lifestyle."
We don't have to put up with that.
And if a kid got sent home because his shirt said the truth:
Silly Homo, Penis's are for chicks.
You think the ACLU would give that kid the time of day?
She plagiarized this quote from Charles Manson's mom.
He's in Missouri and he didn't get beat up after school?
If radical freaks ever get the 'power' they lust after, their rabid attack-dog aka the ACLU would bring a charge of "hate" against anyone who dared to wear a t-shirt with the logo suggested by you. "Truth" is hateful and intolerant, dontcha' know?
cleaning coffee off the keyboard
The real shame of this ACLU circus is that it overshadows another outstanding Webb City Cardinal football team.. they have one of the finest programs in the state year in and year out and are the front runner for another state championship this year...GO CARDS!!
If only inoffensive speech is allowed, there's no freedom of speech. When I was 16, I was outspokenly opinioniated, debating my more secular-minded friends on religion and politics. High school kids are not stupid and are often quite aware of what's going on around them. They should have the right to express themselves.
Interesting... They never say what was printed on the back. They say that he wore another shirt where he wrote his own gay and proud statement, but the reporter doesn't appear to want to let us in on what the statement on the original shirt said.
The ACLU is actively moving to suppress anything related to Christianity because it offends people. Enough is enough. It's past time for people to recognise the ACLU for what it is....a dangerous enemy of this country with an agenda to destroy it from within.
So how many threads have we seen on FR in the last few months about High School students who have worn conservative or Christian advocacy clothing and gotten treated like this? Under our Constitution, freedom of speech cannot only belong to those who advocate speech you approve of.
According to another article I read on the same story, the back of the shirt has a pink triangle and the words "Make a Difference!".
What surprises me is that people never ask if THEIR lawyer is a member of the ACLU. Did the lawyer who drafted you will donate to the ACLU? Does the lawyer have a "member ACLU" certificate on the wall?
How many PUBLIC law school use PUBLIC money to support this idiocy? Many ACLU chapters are based out of law schools with Professors and law students as free labor.
There is no reason to publicly fund the ACLU.
snip....What surprises me is that people never ask if THEIR lawyer is a member of the ACLU. Did the lawyer who drafted you will donate to the ACLU?
That's an excellent observation. There are a lot of Christian civil rights groups now. They've sprung up to counter the Left {ACLU, PFAW, etc} and to protect our civil liberties. The Alliance Defense Fund, American Center for Law and Justice, and the Rutherford Institute are but three of them.
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