Dear Readers;
If this is what our country is coming to, then I am ashamed to be called a Canadian!
As regular readers know, I am not religious in the least.
Matter of fact, my book “The Plain Truth About God” is an expose of how full of shit mainstream religions really are.
BUT!
When I see people treading softly around Islam least they offend someone, while at the same time Christians are fair game, like this guy, then I have to conclude that the PC movement here in Canada has gone completely NUTS!
Leave the kid alone, for Christ’s sake!
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Sarah Boesveld May 3, 2012 – 8:32 PM ET | Last Updated: May 3, 2012 8:45 PM ET
Ryan Taplin for National Post
Student William Swinimer wearing his banned shirt. “I believe this is worth standing up for — it’s not just standing up for religious rights, it’s standing up for my rights as a Canadian citizen; for freedom of speech, freedom of religion,” he says.
For the past six months, a yellow T-shirt with the slogan “Life is Wasted Without Jesus” has been just another shirt in William Swinimer’s wardrobe.
Lately, the 19-year-old Nova Scotian has worn it every single day since the vice-principal at his high school told him he couldn’t, that it was considered offensive, that it spewed, in his own words, “hate talk.”
Instead of peeling the shirt off like they wanted him to, Mr. Swinimer continued to wear it — straight through a series of in-school suspensions and straight through the five-day at-home suspension he’s currently serving.
Related
When he comes back to class at Forest Heights Community School in Chester Basin, N.S., on Monday, he plans to wear it again — even if it means he could be suspended for the rest of the school year.
“I believe this is worth standing up for — it’s not just standing up for religious rights, it’s standing up for my rights as a Canadian citizen; for freedom of speech, freedom of religion. I don’t think this is right.”
‘There was no profane language, there was no drug references, there was nothing inappropriate on [my] shirt’
The Grade 12 student’s act of defiance has shone a light on the balance schools attempt to strike between accommodating all faiths and differing viewpoints while trying to keep the peace.
It has also reignited the debate about whether students should have the right to express their beliefs at school even at risk offending others.
Mr. Swinimer wonders why his shirt has only now become so controversial, especially when he’s seen other students around school wearing T-shirts with slogans like ‘Hail Satan.’
“There was no profane language, there was no drug references, there was nothing inappropriate on [my] shirt,” he said.
South Shore Regional School Board superintendant Nancy Pynch-Worthylake said students are indeed allow to express their religious beliefs at school.
“I know it’s out there that somehow we don’t allow religious beliefs in school, which is absolutely false,” she said. “The only time is when we have students come forward and say ‘I really feel this is a criticism of my beliefs’ and that’s what happened in this situation.”
The students who complained to the principal took the shirt’s slogan to mean “Your life is wasted without Jesus,” she said, which could reasonably be construed as a judgment.
Mr. Swiniman said it’s a quote from the Bible book Philippians.
This case was handled the same way schools in the board tend to handle any complaint about T-shirt slogans; complaints about offensive clothing do come up every now and then, Ms. Pynch-Worthylake added.
‘Is it obvious that someone would be silly to think it’s offensive? Well no — we can kind of see both [sides]‘
“In meeting with students, we would ask ‘Is it blatantly offensive? And in this case it was ‘No.’ Is it obvious that someone would be silly to think it’s offensive? Well no — we can kind of see both [sides],” she said. “And then in meeting and talking with students we would say ‘The easy way to deal with this respectfully would be to just wear a different shirt.’”
But Mr. Swinimer wasn’t going to wear a different shirt, and defiance —especially repeated defiance — is grounds for suspension, Ms. Pynch-Worthylake said.
The school board issued a statement clarifying that “students may choose to wear clothing that embraces their beliefs. However, it is expected that students will not wear clothing with messages that may offend others’ beliefs, race, religion, culture or lifestyle.”
The school board is also consulting a human rights expert to assess whether the shirt can indeed be considered offensive, Ms. Pynch-Worthylake said, adding that she hoped Mr. Swinimer will be back at school as soon as possible.
The Grade 12 student said he continues to wear the shirt because he has been “bullied” about his faith in the past. Though he’s not usually one to rock the boat, he felt he had to take a stand this time and defend his views.
Varrick Day, who is pastor at Jesus the Good Shepherd Church in Bridgewater, N.S. where Mr. Swinimer and his family worship, said he encouraged the shy student to speak out.
“This is not about the T-shirt — it’s about our children and our grandchildren having the right of freedom of speech and religion,” he said. “That’s being taken away in our schools.”
National Post
• Email: sboesveld@nationalpost.com
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Holy Moly!!!!
Just when you think we had the weasels on the run……there appears to be little festering enclaves of liberalistic stupidity alive and well in Canada.
To wit: Chester Basin, Nova Scotia and the sneering sentiment of a devotee of Trudeau-Mania, Ms. Nancy Pynch-Worthylake.
What this is is nothing more than the dying echoes of the cancerous multi-cultural/politically correct/religiously/sexually androgynous lunacy so loved by the socialist Left….plain and simple and nothing more………echoes of Liberal lunacy that, in the words of David Cameron, Prime Minister of Britain, has run its destructive course and is now, thankfully, dead…………..words echoed by our own Prime Minister, Stephen Harper.
Unfortunately, as witnessed in Chester Basin, Nova Scotia……not dead enough.
Were this the wearing of hijab (headbag), incidentally, not mandated anywhere in the koran, there would be no question.
Were this the wearing of a burqua (bodybag), incidentally, not mandated in the koran, there would be no question.
If this were the wearing of a t-shirt extolling the love muhammad has for all the “little girls”, there would be no question.
If this was a t-shirt bedecked with the visage of the revolting ” artistic and edgy rocker” Marilyn Manson advocating the sunnier side of that old prankster, Lucifer…..there would be no problem.
If this were a t-shirt advocating the trivial matter of abortion or of one’s enthusiastic endorsement of the annual Festival of Fudgepackery (read: Gay Pride Parade)…….there would be no problem.
But this is a t-shirt advocating a life lived in a Christly manner…..you know….not killing your neighbours, not packing fudge, not stealing, not crawling into bed with children, honouring one’s mother and father…… in other words….”Doing unto others as you’d have done to you”………..oh how outrageous!!!….how utterly offensive!!!…..the outrage!!!!……the horror!!!!…..oh the humanity!!!……..oh how right wing extremist!!!!
What I find far more injurious, far more outrageous than a t-shirt advocating peace and forgiveness, is the unbridled hypocrisy of Canadian academia and their dull-witted handmaidens; bureaucratic school administrators.
From the bedazzled Dr. Trish Fulton, president of Huron University College, who couldn’t drop her panties fast enough in accepting millions of dollars from the terrorist group, The Muslim Brotherhood, to the countless Canadian and American institutions of “higher learning” that allow the Muslim Students Association and the Muslim Students Union to openly cavort about campuses calling for the commencement of a second holocaust. I suppose to these “free thinkers”, the stuffing of a human being headfirst into an oven is an activity as wholesome as three-legged races and bobbing for apples on the annual school field-day. I know……..it boggles the mind.
Further, witness the segregation of menstruating young girls at the Valley Park Middle School in Toronto during the “Friday Mosqueteria”. Little girls made to feel as human filth for a process as natural as a heartbeat….not a ripple, not a word from school administrators…in fact, they enthusiastically endorsed it.
Now this hyphenated hypocrite, this school administrator, Superintendent Nancy Pynch-Worthylake, a stomach turning combination of political correctness and liberalism who no doubt finds offence and some sort of “ism” in everything from breakfast cereal to long distance calling plans, has decided the act of wearing a t-shirt endorsing Christ and Christian values is a crime to be punished by expulsion and suspension…….how utterly ridiculous……..how utterly Liberal…….how utterly Nancy Pynch-Worthylake.
Canadians, and no doubt the residents of Chester Basin, Nova Scotia, have had enough of this sort of divisive and outrageous stupidity. Perhaps the powers that be at Forest Heights Community School, humiliated and outraged at being made the horse’s ass of Nova Scotia by a conniving crone, will, after shining the light of day on this little fecal fatwa, relegate this vacuous cow and her delicate Liberal sensibilities to a pasture far out beyond left field where, between mouthfuls of clover and puffed up with an overwhelming sense of sanctimonious self importance and pious civic obligation, she can reign supreme over her cud chewing peers and issue little fatuous edicts to her hearts content….or….as they say in Chester Basin, Nova Scotia……………till the cows come home.
In closing, thankfully, practitioners of prize winning bovine buffoonery like Nancy Pynch-Worthylake are an endangered species……as such, no doubt Forest Hills Community School will soon be graced by that omnipresent enviro-grifter, David Suzuki, as, smelling a juicy government grant, he tries to round up Nancy Pynch-Worthylake and place her in captivity for breeding purposes……….this said, another problem looms large, a suitable partner………perhaps Justin Trudeau is up to the task?…………I know Libby Davies, blithely ignorant of the laws of nature, is always willing to give it the old college try!!!!……perhaps Hedy Fry will join Libby and make it a team effort……..oh I’m getting so dizzy!!!!
I’m done here…….
Regards, Don Laird
Edson, Alberta, Canada