More bravery from a teenager standing up for equality! 15-year old Sara Couvillon, a student at Hoover High School in Alabama, has been told she can’t wear a t-shirt she happens to like.
The t-shirt, which states in big letters – “gay? fine by me” – is a shirt that Sara wore to school last year without any issue. This year however, her school administrators told her that the shirt causes them “concern for her safety” according to the Birmingham News.
The civil rights group, The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has sent a letter to the school demanding that they stop censoring students by September 12th or a suit will be filed against them.
Well done, Sara and thank you to SPLC for supporting a child who knows better than the adults surrounding her.
In the ironically-named Stonewall, Louisiana, it seems the principal of DeSoto Middle School is the one who needs some schooling.
Though students are usually required to wear a uniform, eighth grader Dawn Henderson had earned the right to dress casually to school. So she sported a t-shirt that read “Some kids are gay and that’s o.k.”
Dawn had the shirt covered by a zip-up, but word still spread around until she was told by the principal that she needed to change the shirt immediately. According to Dawn, “He basically told me he thought it was a distraction…My opinion is any shirt can be distracting.”
Principal Keith Simmons couldn’t be reached for a comment as of this afternoon, but we hope to be speaking with him soon.
features a video by artist David Wojnarowicz (who died from AIDS-related illness in 1992). The video, created in 1987, is titled “A Fire in My Belly,” made in honor of Peter Hujar, an artist-colleague and lover of Wojnarowicz who had died of AIDS complications in 1987.
An 11-second portion of the 4 minutes on display (the actual film is 30 minutes long), features a cross with ants crawling over it.
Today, after just a few hours of pressure from The Catholic League, who complained that the piece was “designed to insult and inflict injury and assault the sensibilities of Christians,” the museum shut down the exhibit, effectively censoring the artwork of an openly-gay artist who died from AIDS – on World AIDS Day.
Since last night, pundits have been attacking the exhibit as a tax dollar-funded installation. Glenn Beck said about the exhibit:
“And then you have the tax dollars funding this wonderful art display. It’s Christmas at the Smithsonian.”
“Your taxpayer dollars being used for this: A picture of Jesus covered in ants. The art is being pulled, but the museum is keeping your money. Is this a good use of your dollars?”
As has been reported (and could have easily been found out with the most cursory amount of research by any journalist), this exhibit is entirely privately-funded, as can be discovered by looking at the event’s page on the National Portrait Gallery website. Thanks to Media Matters for more incredible reporting.
So, not only did those who publicly oppose equality successfully censor an openly-gay artist who died from AIDS on World AIDS Day, but they’ve lied to raise wrongful anger against our nation’s greatest museum.We have left some messages for the Director of the National Portrait Gallery, but have not yet heard back. We hope to offer some further information on this soon.
More bravery from a teenager standing up for equality! 15-year old Sara Couvillon, a student at Hoover High School in Alabama, has been told she can’t wear a t-shirt she happens to like.
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