I have a problem with this

I have seen this...memething (memelet?) everywhere. I have a problem with it.

A religion teacher assigned her class an essay on what makes a good Christian. One student wrote about praying nightly, say no to abortion, banning gay marriage, and donating money. The other student wrote about talking to God and allowing people to enjoy their lives, and supporting gay marriage. The day the teacher was to hand the papers back, she called up the second student and told him she would pray for him when he went to hell. The student asked why would he be going to hell, and why he got an F on his paper. The teacher told him that Catholisim is against gay marriage. The student looked at her for a minute, then said aloud, "I'm gay." The teacher kicked him out of class as if he had said fuck or worshiped Satan. A girl in the back of class who had a boyfriend and was obviously straight got up and left too.

If you would leave the classroom, repost this. It doesn't matter if you're straight, bi, or gay. It doesn't matter if you're catholic or not. Everyone is a human being and deserves happiness.

I am not reposting this with the blanket statement that of course I would walk out. The reality is, I can't say I would.

I can say that I don't support the teacher's actions in this. I can say that I admire the hell out of the student (and all the others who have been put in this situation) for his actions. I can say that I admire the hell out of the girl as well, for standing up for something that was right. I can say that I really, really like the boy's interpretation of Christianity/Catholicism.

What I cannot say is that, had that been me in either of those positions at the age that I would have been receiving classroom education (ie, 18 or younger) I would have walked out. I would have been terrified to do so. I would have believed that it wasn't worth it to leave the room and to jeopardise my high school career. I would have believed that it would be another thing (and no one, with the exception of graeae will ever, under any circumstances whatsoever know what my high school career was like and why it was absolutely hell on earth - and I will back that against your experience of high school as hell on earth, as well) that would set me apart from the "peers" I was so far from in so many ways that the only thing that kept me in school is that I like school and education for themselves.

I didn't like the students I found there, by and large, until I went to Oxford. I had my friends (or more often friend) and that was all I needed.

So. Given all that, I would not, under any circumstances whatsoever, have walked out of that room unless a lot of other people did, or at least the few people whose opinions I valued.

Bear in mind, I didn't start identifying as needed as bisexual until I was nineteen. Before that - well, when I figured it out, it wasn't even a case of figuring it out. Slow child that I am, I did not actually realise that other people didn't think the same way for a long time.* After that, I saw what happened to the one person at my high school who did come out as bisexual. 'Eaten alive' would be the nice way to say it. If that had been me giving that teacher that essay, I wouldn't have said anything about it.

Would I walk out now? Yes. I would have walked out probably starting when I was about 22. Would I walk out now and do everything I could to get that teacher fired? Yes.

But I wouldn't have then.

Do you post this because you would have done it in high school or because you would do it now?


*Bear in mind, this is a consistent pattern in my life. I once flipped someone off in fourth grade, got punished for it, and when I asked my mother WHY I was punished, she told me I knew what I had done.

I did not, in fact, know what I had done until 8th grade.