This installment of the new series, “Our Public Schools Today”, comes to us from Orlando Florida.
Here are the particulars, via Dave Huber’s article at thecollegefix.com:
A teacher in Orlando, Florida is under fire for allegedly forcing students to take off their Christian cross necklaces, and for “promoting an LGBT agenda” in class.
The Tampa Bay Times reports the Liberty Counsel organization sent a letter to Hillsborough County Superintendent Jeff Eakins claiming that teacher Lora Jane Riedas “barred at least three students from wearing Christian crosses on necklaces in her classroom, claiming they are ‘gang symbols.’”
Riedas, a math teacher at Riverview High School, also engaged in gay rights political activism during class time, according to the complaint.
Readers of this blog certainly know I am 100% supportive of gay rights. But they certainly also know that I am 100% against indoctrination of any kind by people in authority – like, for example, by high school teachers who have the power to raise or lower their students’ grades, thus affecting their ability to get into colleges.
Not only is the action described above sick and odious, but, ironically, it does great damage to gay people.
If children in Christian families are told that their children can’t wear a cross because it is a “gang symbol”, but it is OK for a gay activist teacher to promote gay issues in what is supposed to be a math class, how do you figure those families will react? POSITIVELY? And how many others, Christian and non-Christian, will react the same way?
If the allegations against Lora Jane Riedas turn out to be true, she should be immediately removed from the classroom, and an apology sent to all students and their families, Christian or otherwise.
The purpose of a public school is to provide an education, not an indoctrination. Period, end of story.
