No Tolerance for Christian Students Viewpoints on Pennsylvania Campus

October 12th, 2005 9:59 PM

Last week Time Magazine’s cover story was called The Battle Over Gay Teens and I wrote an article discussing the bias from the writer of the article and also cited examples of where content was intentionally ignored. 

Today I read an article found on The Patriot News website called Gays Win Support On Campus and the article mentions, as its main support, the Time magazine article from last week.

Acceptance seems to fit with recent studies, described in Time magazine last week, that show it is now uncool among many teenagers to be anti-gay.

However, once again, the author only cites liberal gay resources as their support. For example they cite the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, a gay activist group that intentionally intimidates anyone who does not agree with the pro-gay message.

The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network has counted at least 3,000 chapters of the Gay-Straight Alliance in American high schools, compared with 100 in 1997.

Monica Von Dobeneck, the author of the article,  also cites the name of the gay club on the campus called Freedom Rings, however when citing examples from the Christians who feel they are being discriminated against, there is no mention of the Christian club or organizations that support Christian students having rights in the schools.

Last year on Coming Out Day, Jacob Prestidge wanted to wear a T-shirt reading "Homosexuality is wrong." He said he was talked out of it by the student services committee, particularly because he was a resident assistant.

And yet what Von Dobeneck conveniently leaves out is what Jacob said concerning this issue on a website last year.

Recently, I had a discussion with some members of the student services staff here at LVC regarding my desire to wear a t-shirt bearing the phrase “homosexuality is wrong.” The student services staff heavily discouraged my wearing of the shirt to the point of expressing verbal concerns about it affecting my re-appointment as an RA. I was told the problem was not so much what I wanted to say, but how I wanted to say it. As just a naked statement like that, it could offend. Yet when I asked if they would have a problem with me wearing a shirt which said “homosexuality is okay”, they replied that they would not.

Why was the fact that Jacob was intimidated left out of the article? Makes one wonder doesn't it?  And yet this year on Coming Out Day the school allowed t-shirts to be handed out to students that said, "Gay? Fine by me".  What about all of the students that comment offends?  Don't these students have the same rights?   Apparently not because as one pro-gay student said,

"We've had people on our campus who have exhibited that they're bigots," Mike Malafarina said as he picked up one of the last T-shirts. "It's nice to protest back. I have gay friends. ... We shouldn't be so tolerant that we're tolerant of the intolerant."

In other words, if you don't agree with the message that is being sold to you that being gay is okay, then you're intolerant and you're a bigot and your views are not allowed.  I wonder if there will come a day when someone in the media writes an article titled Christians Win Support On Campus and shirts saying, "Christian...fine by me" are passed out free to students and organizations everywhere.  I won't hold my breath.