As you may know, Jerry Buell has returned to work.
If you don't know, Jerry Buell is the central Florida high school teacher who, on July 25, got so outraged while watching a TV report about the legalization of gay marriage in New York that on his personal Facebook page he wrote, "I'm watching the news, eating dinner, when the story about New York okaying same sex unions came on and I almost threw up."
Then he did another post, about how gay marriage is a "cesspool." "God will not be mocked," he wrote. "When did this sin become acceptable???"
When a number of his 700 Facebook friends reacted negatively to his comments, Buell posted, "If one doesn't like the most recently posted opinion, based on Biblical principals and God's law, then go ahead and un-friend me. I'll miss you like I miss my kidney stone from 1994."
At Mt. Dora High School, where he teaches, Buell is (hold on, now) chair of the social studies department. He's been teaching history at the school for nearly 30 years. So respected is he at the school that last year he was named Mt. Dora's Teacher of the Year.
"I teach and lead my students as if Lake Co. Schools had hired Jesus Christ himself," is how Buell describes himself on his school's webpage. On his class syllabi is his warning, "I teach God's truth, I make very few compromises. If you believe you may have a problem with that, get your schedule changed, 'cause I ain't changing!" On on a separate document, Buell wrote that he regards the classroom as a "mission field."
A history teacher -- a Teacher of the Year, no less -- making sure everyone knows he won't compromise in teaching "God's truth." And people wonder why so many American students think europe is a flavor of fruit roll-ups.
(For anyone reading this who doesn't know me or my work, I, too, am a Christian. But to my mind, Buell's version of Christianity is what a paint-by-numbers painting is to a Rembrandt.)
After being reassigned to administrative duties for about a month, Buell is now back teaching in the classroom; he missed but the first three days of school. His defense was vigorously mounted by the Orlando-based, ultra-conservative Liberty Counsel, who persuaded the Lake County School District that Buell's postings on Facebook were protected by the First Amendment.
After the ruling in his favor, Buell told a local TV station that he had no plans to apologize for his remarks. "I'm exercising my rights, First Amendment rights, guaranteed in the Constitution, supported by the state of Florida ... on Facebook," he said. (At his wife's urging, Buell has since deleted his Facebook page. Good call, wife.)
Besides what it indicates about America's educational system, here's my concern with this story: A man whom lots of kids see as an authority figure engages in public hate speech against gay and lesbian people. For doing that he gets in a little trouble, but the Big Word, the final call, is that it's perfectly OK. What he did was fine. He got his job back. He won.
Buell's story went large nationally. Thus did high school kids all across the country learn this week that it's a-OK to pick on gay people.
It was at about this time last year that we start hearing of the first of what turned into a rash of gay youths committing suicide due to the incessant cruel bullying they'd suffered at the hands their school mates. (Suicide is the third leading cause of death among 15 to 24-year-olds, and 30 percent of all American teens who die by their own hand are LGBTQ.) It was these suicides that led me to interview Charles Robbins, then executive director and CEO of The Trevor Project. (You can read that very moving interview here. Please do.)
I'm harboring deep trepidation for the beginning of this new school year.
All those kids.
All those Jerry Buells teaching them.
Follow John Shore on Twitter: www.twitter.com/johnshore
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. Once again I have to ask: has the writer ever sat through one of Mr. Buell's classes? Is he just taking someone else's word concerning Mr. Buell? I also question his bona fides as a Christain. To teach according to Biblical standards might be just the thing that will change the social attitude of our young people. As far as changing people's attitude towards LGBT community, you can't do it by shoveing them down our necks!
It doesn't take sitting through a class to understand that calling gay marriage a cesspool is bullying. It doesn't take sitting in church to understand the difference between right and wrong, and to understand that when one speaks of a God of love, one can't simultaneously engage in hate speech against a group of God's children.
Actually I kind of think Shore's version of Christianity is like a Mad Magazine fold out. He creases the picture, until the original is unrecognizable and all that remains is a parody that appeals to the lowest common denominator.
http://www.facebook.com/ThruWayChristians
http://theologicalstudies.org/
http://www.monergism.com
http://www.etsjets.org/
http://www.ligonier.org/blog/ (not always theology)
I teach a historical science -- astronomy -- and the entire structure of astronomy demands an ancient universe, which conflicts with the beliefs of the (relatively few) fundamentalist Christians in my class.
At the start of a general astronomy class, I tell my students that the class is about science, and what the best scientific evidence says at this time, not about absolute truth. When I ask them a question such as "How old is the universe?" on an exam, I'm not asking them for absolute truth, and I'm certainly not asking them for their opinion; the implied context is "According to the present scientific consensus, ... "
Students need to be exposed to a wide range of ideas, and learn how to evaluate arguments. They need to have their ideas challenged, and in some cases they'll change their minds. But there is a big difference between this kind of education and indoctrination.
Simply put? Mr. B utterly fails to distinguish between modern era good citizenship that may involvedcommitted loving same sex relationships, and what the full panoply of ancient near eastern civilizations typically knew as: (A) ritual sex or fertility worship of ancient gods or goddesses, (B) rape and/or sex exploitation of all weaker citizens or slaves by anyone stronger or more powerful or holding more status in an ancient near eastern society, and finally (C) bodily-sexual violation as a given prerogative in ancient near eastern warfare. This important distinction is so common sense that nearly any minimally educated teacher should be able to at least understand and discuss it intelligently, let alone take the research into account when forming his own curriculum, let alone when honestly forming his own personal views.
All that includes about sixty years of wide, deep research. Alas, Lord have mercy. But don't give up. Saul stood by at the stoning of Stephen.
t seem to grasp the importance of separating church and state, the employee winds up looking like a victim and the complaining liberals appear to be Stalinist meanies. This pattern of litigation is part of the conservative effort to chip away at church-state separation so the right will be free to indoctrinate public school students in its religious ideology. America shouldn't fall for it, and the people of Lake County, Fla., should demand that their public school system enforce the proper rules against mixing church and state activities.
Would it even be possible for a so-called Christian to be any more blasphemous than this Jerry Buell? He is saying, in effect, that he is just like Jesus. Really? Perhaps the crucifixion and resurrection are just around the corner.
Just had a mental flashback to that episode. Wanting to try to inject humor into a dire situation. Man sounds like Homer Simpson!
Obviously, his school district does not respect and abide by separation of Church and State either. Indeed, the flag is the last refuge of a scoundrel, which come in the forms of bigots, Tea Partyers, religious zealots, tax-dodgers, and minor bureaucrats mis-using their authority over those they are paid to competently serve.