A Christian student has been punished by his Michigan high school for demonstrating opposition to a school event celebrating the homosexual lifestyle. The boy's father, a pastor, says he's frustrated the rights of Christian students are being constantly trampled on campus. Oakridge High School in Muskegon, Michigan, is one of many schools across the U.S. that took part in Wednesday's "National Day of Silence" -- an event promoted heavily by homosexual activist groups, which view it as a day to protest alleged discrimination faced by students who identify as "gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender (GLBT)." At Oakridge High, duct tape was passed out for students to wear over their lips as a way to show solidarity with homosexual students who are purportedly suffering in silence.
John Gardner is pastor of Holton Family Life Worship Center in Holton, a community of approximately 2,500 about 17 miles northeast of Muskegon. Pastor Gardner says his 15-year-old son David, a student at Oakridge High, was suspended for a day by the school because he wrote with a black marker "I'm straight" on a piece of duct tape and attached it to his shirt. He explains that David donned the message to voice his objection to the school's participation in the Day of Silence.
"They asked him, at that point, to take it off," Gardner says, "and David [asked] why do the rest of the kids in the class get to wear theirs and I can't wear something about what I believe?" According to the pastor, the teacher then instructed David to remove the message or he would be "kicked out" of class. "And he said, 'Well then, you'll have to kick me out' -- and that's what they did," says David's father.
Pastor Gardner says every week he preaches that the day is coming when opposition to homosexuality will be banned, but he never imagined it would happen in his small Michigan town. He says a "liberal mentality" is being pushed in public schools to the extent many children are being indoctrinated with it.
It is time, says the Michigan pastor, for Christians to step to the forefront. "I tell you, I fear what's coming in the next ten years for the Church and the schools -- and children, in general -- if the Christians don't come out of their closet," he says. "The gays and lesbians want to come out of their closet; I think the Church needs to come out of their closet and stand up and be the Body of Christ that God has told it to be."
Gardner states he has not decided whether to take legal action against Oakridge High School.
