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District vindicates student who objected to homosexuality

A Texas school district where a student was removed from class and written up on allegations of "bullying" after he expressed his Bible-based opinion about homosexuality has been vindicated by school officials.

The case involved student Dakota Ary, who said to a classmate in a German-language class that was discussing religion, "I'm a Christian and, to me, being homosexual is wrong."

Teacher Kristopher Franks overheard the comment, according to a report from Liberty Counsel, and wrote the student an infraction and sent him to the principal's office.

In happened in the Western Hills High school district in Fort Worth.

The class topic had been religious beliefs in Germany. During the discussion, one student asked what Germans thought about homosexuality in relation to religion. Another student then asked to hear some translated terms such as "lesbian." The questions provoked the conversation about Christianity and Dakota's expression of his opinion to one classmate, the legal team reported.

Liberty Counsel now is reporting that the district has issued a letter that apologizes for the delay in returning the student to his class.

"We are pleased that the school district vindicated Dakota Ary," said Mathew D. Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. "No public school teacher should use the position of authority to bully students to accept homosexuality. That is what this teacher did, and he got his hand caught in the cookie jar. We want to make sure this never again happens to any student."

Liberty Counsel reported that Franks accused Dakota of "possible bullying" and stated, "It is wrong to make such a statement in public school."

But, according to Liberty Counsel, just two weeks earlier, Franks had displayed on the classroom wall a picture of two men kissing, and he accompanied that with the instruction to students that homosexuality is becoming more prevalent in the world and they should just accept it.

The district placed Franks on a temporary administrative leave while it investigated the complaint.

The letter, from Bertha Bailey Whatley, legal counsel for the district, to Matthew H. Krause of Liberty Counsel, confirmed that the review focused on the removal of the student from class.

"A perceived student conduct violation does allow for the temporary removal of a student. The district then considers two questions before assessing discipline. The first is whether there has been a violation of the Student Code of Conduct. If so, the district then determines the appropriate consequence for such a violation. But in this case, as in all cases, if the perceived violation is determined not to be true, the student is returned to class, as soon as possible, without consequence."

The school's explanation continued, "Unfortunately, Dakota remained in in-house suspension for almost four hours before returning to his assigned classes without a consequence. While the delay was due to the district's attempt to carefully consider the competing interests presented by the referral, we do apologize for the delay in returning Dakota to class."

Liberty Counsel had written the district a demand letter requesting full vindication and a full retraction of the suspension. It confirmed the district's letter is being placed in the student's file should questions arise in the future.

District vindicates student who objected to homosexuality http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=354753#ixzz1armOeuhb

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