Students at an Ohio school were allowed to hang gay pride flags all over campus, but when a teen girl named Gabby Helsinger responded by sharing Bible verses, she was punished severely.
Gabby was taken out of her class and given ISS (in-school suspension) because she shared Bible verses that were meant to be encouraging.
A document from the school’s administration said that Helsinger “targeting” the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance and showed “abuse of others, disrespect, [and] rudeness” by just posting Bible verses.
We live in a world like this…
“So, on Thursday when I got to school, I see that there were pride flags, posters around my school,” said Gabby. “And I felt the need to write down some Bible verses so I could put them around my school. And I wrote them down and I put them around [the] lockers, the walls. And I was coming back from lunch, because I got sent back to lunch, and I [saw] the teachers taking them down.”
“The next day, I got called to the office and there is a letter that says that I have an ISS, which is an in-school suspension, and the reason why I have it is because ‘abuse of others, disrespect, rudeness’ because I put Bible verses up ‘targeting the ‘GSA’ (Gay-Straight Alliance] organization,” she continued.
“Seeing that there [were] people in my school that needed help … they don’t need to be living in the confusion of wondering if they should be gay, bi, lesbian, trans, anything like that. And I know that God is the only way that they can be healed by that, and that’s why I did it,” she said, emphasizing that she was in no way maliciously “targeting” the LGBTQ group.
“I said, ‘Because I wanted to spread the word of God,’” she explained. “And then he goes, ‘Well, did you have permission?’ And I said, ‘No.’ I didn’t know you had to have permission because people do it a lot — putting Post-It notes on people’s lockers, so I just did it.”
“I asked him why every time Jesus or God or anything like that gets brought up in school, it gets taken down straight away,” she added. “But we can put gay and pride stuff all over the school, and not have to take it down, and people can talk about it. But when you talk about God or Jesus, you just get put down and you’re not allowed to talk about it.”
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