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Written by WiG
Feb 2, 2012
The right-wing Liberty Counsel and the American College of Pediatricians are calling on the superintendent of the Shawano school district to apologize to a high school student he reprimanded for advocating the execution of gays in a student newspaper.
Shawano high school published a point-counterpoint feature in which two students argued the merits of gays adopting and parenting children. One student, Brandon Wegner, quoted biblical passages calling for the execution of gays as he made his argument against gay parents.
Students complained about the column, as did Nick Uttecht, a gay father with children attending Shawano schools. The school district reacted, with the superintendent apologizing publicly and officials removing the controversial column from remaining copies of the paper.
But controversy remains, with the school board expected to take up the issue this month.
In late January, the Christian-right Liberty Counsel raised the threat of legal action if the district did not apologize to the student journalist.
Liberty Counsel founder Mathew Staver said, “The actions by the school principal and superintendent are appalling. The school district board members should be ashamed at the way this matter was handled by school officials. The two students who wrote point-counter-point op-eds engaged in a civic dialogue about homosexual adoption. The superintendent then set a bad example by punishing one viewpoint and using his position to bully a 15-year-old student. That is wrong and must be corrected."
Also, the socially conservative ACP defended the student’s argument in the column: "There is no clear evidence that children reared in same-sex-led households fare as well as those reared by their biological heterosexual parents. In fact, there is evidence of relative risk to the child within this non-biological setting. It appears that this is the point that this student was trying to make."
Uttecht, who plans to address the school board, said his family continues to maintain that publication of the column was wrong and the student and faculty advisor deserve punishment.
Read more about the situation here.
