Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1948

Christian Writer Says It’s Hard to Imagine Vicky Beeching is Gay Because Men Find Her Attractive

Last week, U.K. Christian singer Vicky Beeching (below) won some queer friends — and lost some Christian ones — when she came out as gay in an interview with The Independent.

Right off the bat, Beeching crushed the notion that you can’t be simultaneously gay, Christian, and content with yourself. In an interview with notorious homophobe Scott Lively, she shot down every one of his bigoted remarks, including his suggestion that she look to God to “change” herself.

Beeching went on to say that we need to “accept our sexual orientation as a God-given gift.”

Lively replied, “There is no such thing as a gay person. It’s this identity you adopt.”

“I believe God has made me the way he’s made me. It’s taken me thirty-five years to come to terms with that, and I believe that’s it’s part of my God-wired identity,” Beeching retorted.

After Lively said that God has the ability to help her “overcome your sexual inclinations,” Beeching replied, “That kind of thinking has been so damaging to me and it damages so many people.”

Beeching is easily a role model for LGBT people (Christian and otherwise) who need the validation and affirmation they don’t get from most churches. That’s why it’s so upsetting that Ed Vitagliano, a writer for the Christian site Charisma News, is not only “disappointed” in Beeching’s coming out, but claims she’s “broken” for saying it.

First, Vitagliano states that he loves homosexuals. It’s literally his first sentence: “I love homosexuals.” He “feels compassion toward them,” he says later, because he simply can’t imagine what it would have been like to have a crush on a boy as a kid. Then, he tests my ability not to throw my computer out a window by saying it’s hard to imagine Beeching is gay because men find her attractive:

I think most men would think that Vicky is a pretty lady, and those sorts of appraisals are usually made without thinking. This makes the subject of sexual orientation rather difficult to understand at times.

What’s truly offensive is his stream-of-consciousness attempt at explaining the origins of homosexuality. To preserve its horridness, here’s the bulk of his rant:

What causes homosexuality? I think there’s probably a web of causes — some apply to this group, some to that, etc. I believe that some homosexuals have endured sexual abuse or other trauma; others suffer from a deficit of some sort that turned them toward the same-sex side of the aisle in an attempt to heal.

At this point I realize I have offended most of the homosexuals reading this. So let me even the score and offend some Christians: I believe some percentage of homosexuals (I have no idea how large or small) simply grew up just like me — only different. Instead of having a crush on an opposite-sex person, they experienced a crush on a same-sex person. To them it appeared just that natural.

But if there’s a God who designed us — and I believe there is — then we obviously aren’t designed to be attracted to the same sex. With my apologies to the Vicky Beechings of the world, the human race is clearly designed as male and female, with sexually complementary equipment. We are obviously intended to grow through childhood and enter puberty attracted to the opposite sex — because that’s the only thing that makes sense of the biological design inherent in humankind.

So for Vicky and Ray and Jennifer and Clay — how do we explain the fact that their attraction developed in complete disregard for design? Here’s the short answer: They’re broken. Why is that so hard to say? Sexual and romantic attraction was supposed to develop one way, and it developed another. Maybe it was because of something that was done to them or around them; maybe it wasn’t. But it is different.

His conclusion isn’t new, but that doesn’t make it any less awful. He’s claiming, as so many do, that love, relationships, and basic human existence have no significance beyond reproduction. Never mind that most LGBT people are still physically capable of producing offspring (and they do); Vitagliano’s perspective is that nothing about us as human beings matters except our ability to pop out kids. Personal experiences? Nope. Emotions? Glitch in the system. Would he use this logic to call elderly different-sex couples broken? Or those who can’t have their own children?

Actually, he might. He goes on to compare homosexuality to blindness, both “conditions” that make a person broken. He says this over and over:

Are we not all broken in small and large ways? As a fallen race, isn’t there a web of characteristics about us all that doesn’t reflect the way God designed us? If a child is born blind, does that mean God approves? Isn’t it a sign that something is not as intended?

Eyes were created to see. To not see is not the same as being able to see. The blind are still human, but their brokenness is still brokenness. But isn’t that what we’re doing with homosexuality? Aren’t we denying the obvious — that there’s a disconnect between design and operation in the homosexual? Aren’t many in our society applauding as courageous those who declare their brokenness to be wholeness?

If by “we are all broken,” he means that we all deal with unique challenges over the course of our lives, then yes, we are all broken. But my fear is that he’s being far more literal than that. He perceives LGBT people — and apparently blind people, and people who are paralyzed, and who knows who else — as somehow unable to live and exist freely, happily and, yes, wholly. And he shames people who embrace their differences, an accusation that I can only assume extends beyond LGBT people, but also to other groups of people he considers “broken.”

Only God can make a broken person whole. Sometimes it is done as a miracle, as when Jesus healed a blind or lame or paralyzed person. Sometimes we must wait for our entrance into the kingdom of heaven, when all brokenness is finally healed.

I believe God can make homosexuals whole in this life. Despite the ridicule that follows such a statement, I believe that does happen. 1 Cor. 6:9-11 says so. However, for many — or even most — homosexuals, in order to be Christians they will have to accept that their “orientation” is a manifestation of brokenness, not wholeness. Like the rest of us who are broken in some other way, they will have to reject that lameness and give it to God. They will hobble through life learning to love Him more and more — and yes, learning to obey Him.

In that way, homosexuals are just like me. No better and no worse, but broken nonetheless.

(For the record, I don’t see Vitagliano standing up to proudly claim his own “brokenness” the way Beeching and so many others have. But that’s beside the point.)

While being gay does bring some people hardship, asserting that it will inherently affect a person’s quality of life — or worse, take away from their very worth as a person — does nothing except drive more LGBT people to deny their true selves, resent and loathe their feelings, and, as Beeching said, live a lie. We are more than the function of our bodies. I don’t know what’s taking so many people so long to realize it.

Vitagliano claiming that he feels “compassion toward homosexuals” is an outright lie. It’s gravely offensive to me, to Vicky Beeching, to my fellow queer folks, and even to Christians that he would dare say it.

With a Tweet Advocating the Abortion of Down Syndrome Babies, Richard Dawkins Proves He Has Foot-in-Mouth Disease

Yesterday, in a discussion about abortion on Richard Dawkins‘ Twitter feed, this happened:

He’s had quite the year, hasn’t he?

I have to confess that this one’s a little personal for me. My next (adopted) daughter, with whom we’ve been officially matched and who will join the family in about six months (pending a mountain of cross-national red tape we still have to work through), comes from a group of young kids with handicaps. Those handicaps run the gamut: from albinism to spina bifida, from strabismus to missing or deformed limbs. And yes, some have Down Syndrome.

I don’t like to think that those children — and their adoptive parents, and everyone else who will grow to love them — would have benefited from them being hoovered up and discarded. (I also don’t think that the decision not to abort is evidence of immorality. What an odd and dreadful thing to say.)

Dawkins has toyed with similar themes in the past. In March of last year, he tweeted:

Well, a fetus has the potential for human life, and a pig doesn’t. But that aside, this kind of statement seems, again, peculiarly devoid of empathy. And the baby-to-pig comparison was mild next to yesterday’s advice to abort unborn children with Down Syndrome.

Look, I get it: Dawkins, 73, is an old-school scientist, one who sees biological creatures as the sum of their cells. That’s not a factually wrong point of view. Were he to expound on his thoughts in an essay or a book, most of us could and would follow him just fine. He’s a longform kind of guy. Nothing bad about that.

But on Twitter, the man constantly makes a mess of things. Whenever he gets half a chance to put his foot in his mouth in 140 characters or fewer, he’s on it.

It’s not a breakdown of his intellect, which is intact. Rather, Dawkins seems to suffer from an extreme form of tone-deafness. It’s almost as if Star Trek‘s Mr. Spock is modeled after him: cool, rational, detached, and faintly amused by the emotional human fools with whom he is forced to interact.

With Dawkins, it’s gone from quirk to pathology. He apparently can’t see his words as they will be read and interpreted by others. That being the case, he’s doing serious (and serial) damage to his reputation, which frankly doesn’t help the image of atheists everywhere.

I’d be a happy man if someone prevailed upon him to shut down or hand over his Twitter account, for the same reason we don’t let a toddler play with sharp objects.

Funerals for the Non-Religious

With the number of non-religious people on the rise, that inevitably means more non-religious people who die as well. So what happens when it comes time for the funeral and the families don’t want a religious ceremony?

Emma Green takes a look at funeral rites for the non-religious in The Atlantic:

Tattooing yourself with a dead person’s remains is one new way of memorializing death in the absence of faith, [professor Candi Cann] said. “As society becomes more secular, and people are more and more turning to that ‘spiritual but not religious category,’ they’re forming their own do-it-yourself ways of remembering the dead.”

There’s a really fascinating look at “green” funerals in that article, too.

If you’re looking for funeral resources to honor atheists who have died, I would suggest going here and here. And, of course, Grief Beyond Belief has a ton of resources. (Don’t forget organ donations or going to medical school!)

(Image via Shutterstock)

Pastor Steven Anderson: “Robin Williams is Burning in Hell” Because He Didn’t Follow Christ

Earlier today, Hannah wrote about how some Christians seem more concerned about whether Robin Williams accepted Jesus into his heart than any of the other serious issues surrounding his death.

Not all of those Christians are considered extremists by mainstream standards. But when some sound like a very clear fundamentalist, Pastor Steven Anderson, you know there’s a problem. Anderson doesn’t need to speculate about Williams’ beliefs — he already knows:

… Robin Williams committed suicide. Why? ‘Cause he’s miserable. You know why? Because he doesn’t follow Christ…

…

You say “Don’t get on Robin Williams.” You know what? I haven’t even started getting on that cross-dressing freak yet…

…

… It’s a sad day when Christians today are eulogizing, and praising, and saying “Rest in Peace, Robin Williams.” Robin Williams is burning in Hell.

…

[Williams] stood up as a stand-up comedian and mocked the Lord Jesus and made money by mocking Jesus.

Oh, and just watch the 2:45 mark if you want to see him get close to having an aneurysm.

This is one of the problems of putting a religious lens on a celebrity’s life. Even though we can look at all the joy Williams brought to the world, and even though we can and should talk about all the inner demons he had that none of us ever saw from a distance (and may have deemed non-existent simply because he was rich and famous), there are people who think the focus of the conversation should be on his religious views. It’s the wrong focal point and it detracts from a much more meaningful discussion they could be having.

Respectable Theory or “Pathologizing Belief”? Russian Scientists Posit That Microbes Spread Religiosity

It should come as no surprise that certain sacred religious practices are remarkably unhygienic. Holy water in church fonts tends to be rife with fecal bacteria. Believers who ritually kiss the same holy stone or other religious artifacts no doubt end up sharing microbes. Millions take ritual baths in filthy lakes and waterways in which human waste and dead bodies float conspicuously on the surface. And closer to home, well, are you sure that Father Murphy washed his hands before pinching a series of eucharists between his fleshy fingers and putting the Jesus crackers, and maybe those digits, on one wet tongue after another?

Could habits like these have anything to do with the spread of religiosity itself? Are some microbes essentially carriers and distributors of faith?

It sounds far-fetched, but, according to Michael Schulson in the Daily Beast,

That, more or less, is the suggestion of a paper published last month in the online journal Biology Direct. Written by Alexander Panchin and two colleagues associated with Moscow’s Institute for Information Transmission Problems, “Midichlorians — the biomeme hypothesis” suggests that the impulse behind some religious rituals could be driven by mind-altering parasites. Looking for chances to spread, these hypothetical microbes push their human hosts to do seemingly irrational things — like, say, share a cup of wine en masse, or dunk themselves in the Ganges, or gather themselves from all corners of the earth in order to kiss the same wall, stone, or icon.

On the whole, this paper must make for some of the weirdest academic reading of 2014. It features Jedi knights, cat-borne diseases, the Eucharist, and bacterial mind control. And it’s been making the rounds lately, if by “making the rounds” one means “simultaneously entrancing and horrifying renowned biologists while earning a major cameo in Nature.”

That latter graf is the part where Schulson, who isn’t a scientist but instead holds a B.A. in Religious Studies, can engage in some dismissive editorializing. (Further down in the article, he also gives Richard Dawkins a drubbing; considering some of Schulson’s other writings, he isn’t taking much of a shine to atheism). At the same time, though, he acknowledges that the thought of germs driving people to perform certain acts…

… isn’t quite as outlandish as it sounds. Many germs really do alter their hosts’ behaviors in ways that help the germ spread (think of rabies, which spreads by biting, and which alters the brains of infected mammals to make them feel very, very aggressive; or consider Toxoplasmosis, a protist associated with cats, that seems to cause infected rats to feel less fear of felines).

It’s unlikely that Panchin and his fellow authors have written the year’s high point of biological brilliance, mostly because they readily concede (read their full paper here) that they operate in the realm of inquiry, a.k.a. hypothesis.

They do, however, deserve props for the courage to ask an intriguing and (it seems) rationally defensible question, one that microbiologists and neuroscientists are now free to debate and (I sincerely hope) research further.

More here and here.

(Image via Shutterstock)

Religious Organizations in India Manage to Gather 82 Signatures (So Far) Against ISIS

In India, according to a local news site,

A panel of seven members from various Muslim and Christian organizations came together on Tuesday to condemn the atrocities perpetrated by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other outfits responsible for creating and supporting them, at a press conference held at Islam gymkhana at Marine Lines.

They have so far received 82 signatures from activists and leaders of various communities and professional organizations to support this cause.

Wow. 82 signatures. About half of them from Muslims, and the rest from Christians and Hindus, maybe? Is that awesome or what?

Maybe more is to come (the group will attempt to organize “multi-city rallies across India” to get its message out). And I don’t want to sound totally unappreciative — every Muslim who raises his or her voice against Islam-inspired violence, and bravely does so in public, gets my sincere thanks.

But I’m no Pollyanna. I still remember that, about ten years ago, Muslims in Lodi, California were going to organize a huge demonstration against the attacks of 9/11, in support of the families of the 2,977 victims who lost their lives that day. They would also condemn other violence perpetrated in the name of their religion. The organizers expected sky-high attendance and began calling their initiative “the Million Muslim March” (an optimistic name given that, depending on whom you believe, there are three to seven million Muslims living in the U.S.).

The grand plan was scrapped within weeks when it became clear that various would-be participants didn’t see eye to eye. The Lodi News-Sentinel wrote at the time:

The idea of a “million Muslim march” event in Lodi by Muslims to publicly denounce terrorism has officially died, say those involved.

Envisioned in late June as a response to the allegations of terrorists in Lodi’s Muslim community, the idea drew the interest of Mayor John Beckman, conservative radio host Mark Williams, the Sacramento chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations and local Muslims.

Interest waned, however, when it became apparent the deep division in Lodi’s Muslim community would make organizing such an event difficult if not impossible. It appears it has become impossible, as Beckman said this week the event will not be happening.

“Deep division?” I’ve always wondered, over what? Over whether Allah approves of slamming kerosine-laden passenger jets into tall office buildings? Over whether the Prophet Muhammed would give his blessing to the savage butchery of Margaret Hassan, Daniel Pearl, Theo van Gogh, Kenneth Bigley, Steven Vincent, Nick Berg, and countless others? Over whether the Qu’ran permits blowing up carsful of subway passengers? I understand that different factions don’t always get along, but I didn’t think it’d be hard to draft a blanket condemnation of the grotesque violence, some statement that everybody who isn’t a terrorist sympathizer could easily get behind. But I could be wrong.

So… the Million Muslim March never happened (some weird upside-down facsimile of it did, last year; it drew about 25 participants).

Nor did a march with, say, a quarter of the original number: 250,000 American Muslims taking to the street in righteous anger and sorrow, carrying banners that say “Terrorist Slaughter Sickens Us” or simply, “Not in Allah’s Name”? Too much to hope for, I guess.

Fine. How about 100,000? 50,000?

Huh.

All right: 25,000? 10,000?

5,000? 2,000?

Hello? Anybody?

Again, I don’t doubt the excellent intentions of the 82 signatories in India, especially the Muslim ones, who are sticking their necks out for what they feel in their heart is right. Moderates do need to step up and condemn Muslim savagery.

Yet I keep drifting back to Sam Harris‘ harsh and uncomfortable words about “true” Islam. Harris claimed in a speech in 2010 that fundie gang leaders like Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad don’t represent some off-the-wall, cult-like version of their faith. They are not the Islamic equivalent of the Reverend Jim Jones (that is, they’re not delusional madmen who have criminally perverted the central truths of an ostensibly Holy Book). Bin Laden, Harris said,

… gives a very plausible version of the faith. He gives a truly straightforward version of Islam, and you really have to be an acrobat to figure out how he’s distorting the faith. If these guys were Jains or Buddhists or Amish or Quakers, it would be patently obvious how they were distorting their religion. In fact, their behavior would be unintelligible.

The only problem with Islamic fundamentalism, Harris concluded, are the fundamentals of Islam. If that’s true, 82 signatures are cause for worry, but not wonder.

(Image via Shutterstock)

Oklahoma Archbishop Sues Satanic Group Planning Black Mass for Stealing a Consecrated Communion Wafer

Last month, there was a controversy in Oklahoma when the Dakhma of Angra Mainyu church scheduled a Black Mass at the Oklahoma City Civic Center. In case you’re unfamiliar, a Black Mass distorts and inverts a traditional Catholic Mass, and that offends certain Catholics who believe their traditions are the only ones that matter and cannot be mocked in any way. What really sets them off is the fact that a supposedly consecrated communion wafer may be used in the evening’s festivities.

Because the Civic Center is a public facility, officials had no choice but to allow the ritual to take place there. Even if the symbolism is offensive to some, it’s not reason enough to reject the group.

Not only did Bill Donohue of the Catholic League cry persecution, Oklahoma’s Governor Mary Fallin got involved by issuing a statement condemning the Black Mass — and blaming it on the wrong group:

“This ‘Black Mass’ is a disgusting mockery of the Catholic faith, and it should be equally repellent to Catholics and non-Catholics alike,” said Fallin. “It may be protected by the First Amendment, but that doesn’t mean we can’t condemn it in the strongest terms possible for the moral outrage which it is. It is shocking and disgusting that a group of New York City ‘satanists’ would travel all the way to Oklahoma to peddle their filth here. I pray they realize how hurtful their actions are and cancel this event.”

…

The black mass in Oklahoma City reportedly is being organized by the Satanic Temple of New York City, which last year submitted plans for a public monument of a seated Satan on the state Capitol grounds to counter a monument of the Ten Commandments.

Today, Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul S. Coakley filed a lawsuit against the (actual) group planning the event, claiming they stole a consecrated communion wafer:

Coakley is asking the court to require the Oklahoma County sheriff to obtain the Eucharistic host from the Satanist group and deliver it to him. The lawsuit says that in order for an unauthorized individual to have a consecrated host, he or she would have had to have obtained it through illicit means such as theft or fraud.

In the lawsuit, Coakley said the consecrated host — typically a small unleavened wafer of bread — is considered sacred by Catholic Christians. It is an integral part of the Eucharist, also called Holy Communion.

The lawsuit calls for a return of the wafer and an injunction against its destruction.

To summarize, a Satanic group is being sued for stealing a piece of Jesus… they’re being sued over a symbol.

Keep in mind the Satanic group in question hasn’t said where they obtained the wafer from and there’s no indication they walked into a church and stole it.

So I’ll raise this hypothetical: What if someone attended a church, had a wafer placed on their tongue, didn’t swallow it, walked out with it, and then handed it over to the Satanic group?

Is that theft? Sounds more like regifting to me.

For what it’s worth, in 2008, a University of Central Florida student who pocketed a wafer he got in church got in all sorts of trouble. But the issue there was a moral/ethical one, not a question of theft.

You can argue that using a consecrated wafer is disrespectful. You can argue that it’s unethical. But unless they walked into a church and swiped the wafers somewhere between the storage closet and Mass, I don’t think there’s a legal argument for theft to be made here.

The defendants named in the lawsuit, resident Adam Daniels and Dakhma of Angra Mainyu, are calling this whole thing frivolous:

He said the archdiocese’s efforts will backfire.

“It will not work. We are not cancelling. We are moving forward,” said Daniels, who also threatened to “sue everybody I can sue” for defamation of character. He added that the court has 14 days to serve him with the lawsuit.

“They have two weeks to serve me, if they can find me,” Daniels said.

That’s… um… mature.

I’m not defending what this Satanist group is doing, by the way. I think it’s pretty childish. But it is legal, and they have every right to exercise their freedom of speech. Assuming they obtained the wafer through legal means, that is.

(Image via Shutterstock. Thanks to @sirthomasdrake for the link. Large portions of this article were posted earlier.)

This Georgia High School Football Team is Pushing Christianity on Players and the Superintendent Doesn’t Seem to Care

Last week, we learned that Christianity was the glue that bound together the Chestatee High School football team in Gainesville, Georgia. The American Humanist Association’s Appignani Humanist Legal Center even had pictures of coaches involved in a team prayer, a Bible verse quoted on the team’s workout log sheet, and cheerleaders hoisting banners with Bible verses on them.

The AHA sent the district a letter warning them of the legal problems, but Superintendent Will Schofield hasn’t responded to them.

Instead, he spoke to a local newspaper about why he doesn’t give a damn what they wrote to him:

“I don’t spend much time reacting quickly to letters from people who live a thousand miles away,” said Schofield…

Keep in mind the letter was sent on behalf of someone in the community. For all we know, it’s someone on the team.

Schofield did, however, send a memo to all school employees reminding them of what the law says:

… The Hall County School District wholeheartedly defends the almost unlimited rights of students to exercise their religious beliefs. As long as activities do not infringe upon or disrespect the religious beliefs of others, or disrupt classroom instruction or school routines, students have the right to pray, read religious materials, talk to their classmates about their beliefs, and following district protocol, form clubs or associations with students who share similar interests. Voluntary, student-led prayers fall within these criteria.

Hall County Schools will continue to be a place that celebrates our nation’s founding principle of respecting differing viewpoints. Once again, as long as the expression of individual beliefs is not disruptive or harmful to others, we will cultivate and strive to model a culture of respect.

By law, and under current legal interpretation by the courts, public school employees on the job do not enjoy the same level of religious freedom at school as do our students, yet their religious rights do not evaporate at the schoolhouse gate. Teachers, coaches, administrators, and other school employees may live out their faith in a variety of ways; however, they must not be leading students in prayer during school or school-sponsored activities, nor may they require or pressure students to participate in religious activities.

That may take care of the team prayer issue, as long as it’s enforced, but it still doesn’t address the Bible verse on official workout sheets.

What bothers me is how little Schofield seems to care about the non-Christian students in his district. These incidents don’t happen in isolation. If we’re only seeing the problems on the football team, who knows how much worse it is everywhere else? Schofield shows little if any empathy for students who may not be religious, but he keeps talking about how he wants to respect everybody’s rights.

That doesn’t happen when one religion is given special treatment.

The AHA says they’re waiting for his official response, but Schofield hasn’t indicated when that will come. It’s like he’s just begging for the district to be hit with a lawsuit.

(Thanks to Brian for the link)

In Response to Pro-Life Group’s Survey, Atheist Congressional Candidate Sends Back Condoms Reading “Prevent Abortion”

James Woods, the openly atheist candidate running for Congress in Arizona’s District 5, recently received a form letter from the National Pro-Life Alliance asking him to sign a pledge supporting the “sanctity of life.”

He wrote back, saying he couldn’t support policies that “jeopardize the health and stability of women and their families”… and threw in a little gift, too: Condoms that read: “Prevent abortion.”

That’ll get their attention, no doubt

His campaign added in a press release:

Woods says he will support proven pro-woman, pro-family initiatives such as those that expand publicly supported family planning services, which currently prevent 1.3 million pregnancies per year. He also favors stronger government empowerment programs for low-income women and their children, as well as comprehensive sex education in K-12 schools.

Woods’ reproductive justice position is part of a progressive Humanist platform that he hopes will motivate other politicians to be open about their Humanist values and identity.

The Phoenix New Times notes that he will go unchallenged during next week’s primary:

There’s been no run to the center for Woods, who’s challenging the incumbent congressman in the Republican-heavy East Valley district. Neither Woods nor [Matt] Salmon have opponents in next week’s primary election.

Woods still has an uphill battle, though, if he wants to beat Salmon.

As Expected, Right Wingers Are Rallying Around Student Who Supposedly Got Punished for Saying “Bless You”

Yesterday, I posted about Kendra Turner, a student at Dyer County High School in Tennessee, who claimed on Facebook that she was sent out of the classroom for saying “Bless You” after a student sneezed:

That seemed pretty crazy, and I offered this hypothetical:

The class was supposed to be quiet. Someone sneezed. Turner said *something* in response (it doesn’t matter what) and the teacher asked her to be quiet. Turner took that as a knock on her faith and felt the need to defend against it. The teacher only saw this as a further disruption and the situation escalated. The student, clearly frustrated, ran out of the classroom and, not long after that, posted something on Facebook.

As far as I can tell, that theory is still plausible.

Since yesterday, there have been a few updates.

1) The teacher supposedly had a list of things you couldn’t say in class written on the whiteboard, and “Bless you” was up there:

Still not evidence of an anti-Christian conspiracy. The teacher, who admittedly seems like a hard-ass, just didn’t want any distractions in class. In my several years of teaching, I experienced several instances where students were supposed to quietly take an exam, someone sneezed, someone else said “bless you” in a way that got everyone laughing, and the class took it as an opportunity to chat when that was the one thing they weren’t supposed to do. In my better moments, I found a gentle way to silence the class… but it’s not always easy to do. In this case, the teacher just put “bless you” on the list of things you shouldn’t say.

It’s just begging for out-of-context misinterpretation. But it’s not anti-Christian. If people regularly said “Gesundheit” the same way, that’d be on the board as well.

2) Bryan Fischer is already rallying his troops against the district. (Because why bother doing real research into the story?)

He notes that students were wearing handmade shirts with “Bless you” written on them yesterday and encouraged other students to join in.

3) Todd Starnes — you knew that was coming — also wrote an article in which he takes Turner’s side with no additional information whatsoever. Apparently her pastor is the only person to see the suspension slip. (The school said she wasn’t suspended.) Starnes also suggests administrators are working against her:

Every now and then a story will land on my desk that seems too outrageous to be true. And to be certain there are two very different versions of what happened in that classroom. But I’m prone to believe Kendra, too.

That’s because Tuesday, a school official tried to convince me this young lady was a trouble maker. They were clever with their words — but that was the impression I received.

Funny, I spoke with school officials yesterday, too, and they said nothing whatsoever disparaging of the student.

But if you want to believe Starnes’ interpretation of a conversation he won’t even reprint… well, you’re his ideal reader, willing to believe everything he writes without question.