School resource officer tells gay teen she's going to Hell

[RandySF]

Writing over at the ACLU’s website, graduating senior Liv Funk chronicles being called homophobic slurs by her classmates, as well as one male student who physically abused her by hitting her with his skateboard.

The bullying got so bad that she finally went to her school’s resource officer — but she found to her horror that he wasn’t about to do anything to help her.

“He said that if I’m going to be an open member of the LGBT community that I should prepare for things like this,” she writes. “The officer said that being gay was a choice, and it was against his religion. He said that he had homosexual friends, but because I was an open homosexual, I was going to hell.”


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.rawstory.com/2018/05/gay-teen-says-went-school-resource-officer-getting-bullied-told-shes-going-hell/amp/

[Laffy Kat]

1. Why do the resource officer and principle still have jobs at that school?

That's what I want to know.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. Because a lot of people believe exactly what this person was told"

that homosexuality is a choice, and that she's going to hell.

It would be helpful to ask people like that exactly when they decided to be heterosexual, and how exactly did they make that choice.

I'm (as I like to say) a happy heterosexual. Oh, and despite my screen name I'm a woman. I was not only born in an era when gays and lesbians weren't understood to exist, but I simply fit into that definition of sexuality. Lucky for me when I was sixteen I became close friends with a lesbian. I learned years later that my mother was quite concerned that I'd been converted somehow.

Look. We are born with our inclinations. For me, it was being interested in the opposite sex. For others it's their own gender. For some happy minority it's everyone.

I think that only a few rules need apply:
Treat everyone with dignity and respect.
If you marry, marry only one person at a time.
Keep it within the species.

Have I missed anything?

[Laffy Kat]

3. No, you haven't missed anything because it's all common sense.

When my boys were growing up we explained it this way: some people are born with brown eyes, some with blue eyes; some people are born right-handed, some left-handed; some people are attracted to the opposite sex, some the same sex. It's all normal. As it turned out my oldest is sexually fluid and completely comfortable being who he is. For the life of me, can't understand why any adult, especially a parent or teacher, would try to hurt a child that way and possibly cause a suicide.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. You've nailed it.

For the life of me, can't understand why any adult, especially a parent or teacher, would try to hurt a child that way and possibly cause a suicide.

Too many people think they've never met anyone who is gay, and are completely convinced that it's a choice. They've been brainwashed by their religious leaders.

In some places, like the Middle East it's even worse: the very concept of homosexuality doesn't exist.

I suppose I was fortunate in that at the age of 20 I went to work in the airline industry, and a significant number of my male co-workers were gay. At first (and I started the job in 1969) there was no openness about that, but after a while there was. I got to know those men as friends and human beings several years before I learned they weren't "normal". It had a profound effect on me. I had grown up in a culture that if it even acknowledged homosexuality, condemned it. But I realized my friends didn't deserve condemnation. For someone who has never known a gay person (or thinks they've never known one), the gay is easily portrayed as other, as evil, as worth condemning.

I suspect that the percentage of gay people is and has been pretty consistent over time. But if being gay is totally unacceptable, if there are no ways for a gay person to express his or her sexuality, if there is absolutely no way to meet someone like yourself, then it is all hidden, and that's why certain cultures claim that they have no gay people.

It's analogous to suicide. Back when the Catholic Church totally condemned suicide, most suicides were covered up. I know of more than one instance in which it was quite obvious to me that the person had killed himself, but because the family was Catholic there was an elaborate pretense that the death was accidental. Even now suicide isn't readily acknowledged or accepted, but trust me, being honest about it is much better than hiding.

[mr_lebowski]

8. Well said ... I've always enjoyed the wonderful irony that King James was a known, flamingly gay man

Ya know, THAT 'King James' ...

And everybody at the time knew damn well that he was.

It really makes the Homophobic Bible-Thumping types heads explode when you argue forcibly that there's absolutely ZERO historical question about the FACT ... that King James was a raging man-lover.

I just love bustin' that little factoid out to the ones who have never learned it.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

10. Somehow I'd missed that.

And I thought I was conversant in English history.

But that is lovely to know, especially when the Bible thumpers start thumping.

Recently on DU someone reported overhearing some "Conservative Christian" saying that gays were mentally ill and will burn in hell, to which the DUer replied (and I'm sure I'm slightly off here) that wasn't it remarkable that God would torment the mentally ill that way.

Clearly, many "Conservative Christians" don't fully think through what they are espousing.

[Cracklin Charlie]

27. Is there not one adult in that whole school who could stand up for that kid?

Do kids in school need bodyguards?

I might volunteer.

[oberliner]

19. They don't

[Demsrule86]

21. They don't have jobs both were fired as result of a settlement with the ACLU

http://www.wweek.com/news/2018/05/21/an-oregon-high-school-counselor-allegedly-told-gay-students-they-were-going-to-hell-while-classmates-attacked-them-and-yelled-slurs/

[Laffy Kat]

22. Thanks for the update.

I thought I missed it in the first post, but it looks like a different article. Excellent. The school district needs to make an example out of them. Makes me feel better.

[Demsrule86]

24. It is a different article...and I was interested in what happened...so I looked it up thanks to your

great post. My daughter is gay.

[msongs]

4. it's the xtian crowd with its usual fear based religious poison nt

[Laffy Kat]

6. Yesterday my son visited the grave site of a friend of his on the anniversary of his death.

He was a Mormon and came out to his parents in the tenth grade. His parents sent him off to some conversion therapy place in Utah. A few months after returning home he killed himself. He was the sweetest kid.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

11. That is so sad.

You wonder what the parents were really thinking.

[lunasun]

26. ++It's a job he took called school resource officer & he should've been able to direct her to other

resources re the assault and bully attacks with out his religious judgement and fear interfering
If he is so afraid of teens being out he should quit the profession

[area51]

7. Damn it.

[avebury]

9. The girl does have the option

of going to the police and filing a complaint against the student who assaulted her with the skateboard. Assault is a criminal act.

She needs advice from an attorney on what her various legal options are against her tormentors and the school.

[JI7]

12. not so easy after her first experience in trying to get help from an authority figure

[avebury]

13. The school cannot stop her

Last edited Tue May 22, 2018, 01:32 PM - Edit history (1)

from pressing charges against the not who physically assaulted her. If she succeeds then she might be able to apply for a VPO against the boy.

[JI7]

14. i'm not talking about others stopping her but her own experience may have made her

feel less like she could trust them to help her.

i hope she does do it though and that they do help her.

[Mariana]

30. I wish more parents would do this

when their children are the victims of crimes at school, especially when school officials refuse to take adequate steps to stop the criminal behavior. Stalking, assault, threats of violence, vandalism, etc. aren't "disciplinary issues", they are crimes and they should be treated as such.

[Exotica]

15. That fucking bellend needs to be sacked NOW. I also hope

she presses charges against the POS who hit her with a skateboard. Outfuckingrageous! Fucking fundie xians. They are a clear and present danger. So glad there are so few here in the Nordics. I am just burning mad.

[oberliner]

18. The resource officer and principal have both been fired

[Exotica]

20. great! thanks so much for the update!

[Laffy Kat]

23. Hope they stay away from schools.

They should not be instructing children.

[gollygee]

16. This makes me feel rage

I'm the parent of an LGBT teen and I would be raging all over the school, the superintendent's office, the police department, the school board, city hall or city council or whoever is in charge of the police department, and everywhere else in the community. Holy crap.

[oberliner]

17. Oregon High School Principal and Resource Officer Fired For Anti-LGBTQ Discrimination

North Bend High School principal Bill Lucero and school resource officer Jason Griggs are being removed from their jobs in the district's settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon. The firings come after complaints from former and current students, including Liv Funk and Hailey Smith, about suffering anti-LGBTQ harassment and discrimination from classmates and administration.

http://www.wweek.com/news/2018/05/21/an-oregon-high-school-counselor-allegedly-told-gay-students-they-were-going-to-hell-while-classmates-attacked-them-and-yelled-slurs/

[MariaCSR]

25. good news!

[lkinwi]

28. There is also an investigation into students being made to read bible passages as punishment.

Idiots like these administrators get hired when school boards get taken over by tea party/evangelicals. The same thing happened in my school district. They were voted out, but it’s been four years and the new school board is still trying to undo the damage.

[ooky]

29. That's good. Let them go do their teaching

at church. They don't need to be out violating the 1st Amendment in our children's schools.