Ohio student suspended for ‘targeting’ Gay-Straight Alliance by posting Bible verses in response to LGBT flags
An Ohio high school student said she was suspended for “targeting” her school’s Gay-Straight Alliance club (GSA) by posting Bible verses in the hallways near LGBTQ pride flags.
Gabby Helsinger posted a video on Facebook last week detailing how she saw pride flags and posters on display at Lebanon High School, about 30 miles northeast of Cincinnati, Fox News reported Tuesday.
{mosads}“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,” Helsinger said in the video.
She said she later saw teachers taking down her Bible verses.
“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 organization,’” she explained in the video. “I did not know what the GSA organization was or meant.”
Helsinger said she witnessed people in her 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,” the teenager said in the video. “And I know that God is the only way that they can be healed by that, and that’s why I did it.”
The student said her principal questioned whether she had permission to post the Bible verses in the hallway. She said she didn’t know she needed permission, citing how people often leave notes on each others’ lockers.
Lebanon City School Superintendent Todd Yohey told Faithwire that it is not against the school’s official policy to share or display religious expression on school grounds.
The school’s principal, Scott Butler, declined to comment to Fox News.
“We do not publicly discuss the discipline of individual students. In general, when a student violates the Student Code of Conduct, there are consequences for those actions,” Butler said.
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