Kudos to these brave young people who live in a town that is midway between Austin and Dallas (geographically, that is), and is home to Baylor University, the well-known Baptist university:
The way they saw it, it was as if someone approached you to sell you a vacuum cleaner, and when you declined, the solicitor said you were going to hell.
After enduring such entreaties in front of their school for three days, some students at Waco High decided to do something about it.
They stood with signs across from the people of Church of the Open Door, who had their own signs and pamphlets about salvation and damnation.
The students chanted things like "No more harassment" and "Straight, but not narrow."
To my eyes it was emblematic of a nation's cultural clash. The evangelical right is feeling its oats after the last election. Nowhere might one feel more heady than in a Bible-belt place such as this. But that doesn't mean people here can't be offended by judgmental rhetoric and social invasiveness.
Waco High junior Amanda Whiddon, one of the counter-protesters, said she was furious that people would impose themselves on her classmates in such a fashion.
"These people really scared me. They were chasing people down and forcing pamphlets on them. It didn’t feel safe and it distracted from classes."
One day the message for students arriving at school was about abortion. The next day it was about homosexuality. Students who reacted defensively, they said, were advised they were going to hell....
Whiddon said she took great offense at someone condemning her classmates for a trait — homosexuality — she is confident they did not choose.
But she said she's seen the same dynamic before, growing up in a society where people can be judged by the color of their skin. In an inner-city high school, students learn to deal with difference in a way others don't in cloistered corners of their choosing.
"At Waco High you have to get along with every type of person," she said. She particularly took offense that pamphleteers would say that gay classmates were a "disgrace" to her school.
"That’s not going to work here," she said....
We can see now why public schools can be seen as a threat to those on the social right. Look at how they foster tolerance, respect for individuality and how they navigate a world of difference — the world in which we live.
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