Let She who is without sin...

Posted on the Facebook Site of the Charleston Baptist Congregation

May I suggest you say some prayers for the Itawamba Agricultural High class of 2010.

I'm in Australia. Even I've heard of what was done by them.

In these days of the Internet, no questionable action done when one is young and impressionable will be forgotten. Already their names and pictures of their faces have been archived. ... See more

Had they just confined their shunning to a homosexual girl, perhaps they might have gotten away with it. But to include those with intellectual disabilities too, that gives an impression of mean-spirited bigotry, and is wholly un-Christian.

I doubt that they meant this to happen. But it did. The pictures of the girl-on-girl kissing and the anal groping some of them engaged in at their not-prom don't help either.

Comparisons are already being made with similar events:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=XSAfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=qacEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6862,5131613

In theory, as I'm on the "opposite side" - not homosexual, but intersexed, born "from my mother's womb" with a body neither male nor female (see 1st line Matthew 19:12), I should be joining in the "public lynching of the bigots".

I do think that their act was mean-spirited. But they're kids. I don't want their lives to be blighted by one minor act of unChristian behaviour, that equally unChristian people will use against them. There's no-one so unCharitable as someone who persecutes others out of a feeling that they're doing the right thing. As they did. And now is being done to them.

Please could the adults in the congregation urge them to get legal advice here, and perhaps issue an explanation, with expressed contrition. Don't attempt to cloak it in religious convictions - because the intellectually disabled were exclud

Just in case you hadn't heard what was done, here's the facts.

A lesbian girl requested permission to come to the school prom wearing a tuxedo.

Her request was refused, and when she took it up as a civil liberties issue, the school cancelled the prom entirely. Dropping heavy hints that it was all this girl's fault.

The courts heard the matter - and let the school off lightly, as the school administrators promised that they'd hold a prom, and not exclude her from attending.

And so they did.... at the same time as the "real" prom, set up by the parents. The fake, official prop was attended by only 7 other students, including two with intellectual disabilities. Now Constance, the lesbian girl, knew about the "real" prom - but didn't show up there as she hadn't been explicitly invited. It was a matter of principle.

Now here's the facebook entry of one of the students.

Caul here, I'm all about havin fun. You know, get a couple cocktails in me, start a fire in someone's kitchen, maybe go to Sea World, take my pants off. Anyway, I've become kind of famous for my signature catch-phrase... WHAMMY!

I think he'll be more famous for other things now.


As Christwire put it: Victory For Mississippi-style Segregation! School Holds Great Prom For Cool Heteros, Separate Event For Lesbians & The Retarded

OK, they may deserve the lynching they're getting. But you know what? How many of us didn't do something we are now thoroughly ashamed of when we were young? Should we too have an albatross hung round our necks in perpetuity?

So while it's really tempting to re-post the pictures of these little bigots... because the same mob had run out of town someone who's trans just a few months before...I won't. My conscience won't let me.

Some Activist, eh? I'm hopeless at it.

We should never let our political, ideological or religious beliefs stop us from acting with simple common humanity. No matter how good it might feel to bathe in righteous anger.

I won't condemn those who feel differently though. Nor will I say they're not acting with justice tempered with mercy.