Girl can't walk at graduation b/c pregnancy

[bekkah]

Pro life organizations are supporting her say that she should be commended for choosing life. 

 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2017/05/24/why_students_for_life_is_fighting_a_christian_school_that_punished_a_pregnant.html?wpisrc=burger_bar

[VelociRapture]

Oh for fuck's sake.

1. She did nothing wrong or immoral.

2. She should not be punished for making the choice best for her. She also shouldn't be lauded like a martyr for the cause. Don't fight for her to walk at graduation because she "chose life." Fight for her to walk because she fucking earned it.

3. Dear High School - if you've never barred a student who violated that stupid rule from walking before then you can't bar this student either. Fair is fair assholes.

4.  Maddi, I may not understand your beliefs or agree with them... but you do you. You worked hard and deserve to be on that stage. Don't let anyone make you feel otherwise.

[CelticGoddess]

HOnestly, how is it courageous that she is choosing to go on with the pregnancy?  My cousin had a baby at 16.  She got NO pressure what-so-ever to abort.  These people obviously think that use pro-choicers are lurking around every corner to force abortions on unsuspecting teens!

This reminds me of Citizen Ruth, where the two sides of the abortion debate use Ruth for their own cause, without any thoughts for the person in question.  The school is calling her immoral (yeah right) and the other side is using her as a poster child for their great cause (gag).   I agree with VelociRapture, she should be allowed to walk because of her hard work and effort during school.  

This is just a mess.

[Buzzard]

15 minutes ago, CelticGoddess said:

 

This is just a mess.

Who/Where is baby daddy?  Does HE get to walk despite being immoral and whatnot?

[CelticGoddess]

6 minutes ago, Buzzard said:

Who/Where is baby daddy?  Does HE get to walk despite being immoral and whatnot?

Apparently, he doesn't go to that school.  Somehow, I get the feeling that if he had gone to that school, he would have been allowed to walk, at least until the school was brought into the spotlight!

 

[dpndetfarm]

A sin where only the female ever pays a penalty. Maybe freshman year the school could test "wear and tear" of each boy's weapon of conception and retest just before graduation. Too smooth or too whothehellknows and no graduation for you little Lord Fornicator and Buster Wad!

[EmainMacha]

@Buzzard apparently she isn't naming baby's dad but says he doesn't go to the same school.

This was on the BBC website homepage as a top story. It's definitely spread beyond the States.

The school board sound like dicks.

[Cleopatra7]

I think anti-abortion conservatives want contradictory things, in that they want to eliminate abortion and reduce the number of single mothers by shaming out of wedlock pregnancies. But these two desires don't go together. Either abortion is so awful that it justifies having more single mothers or single motherhood is such a drain on society and shameful that abortion is a convenient way to avoid this. Anti-abortion people give lip service to the former, but can't stop themselves from expressing the latter. 

[Georgiana]

While I don't agree with the decision, religious institutions have a right to play by their own rules.  They have a right to enforce their religious rules, values, etc. within their own organizations.  They have a right to punish students who disregard their Code of Conduct.  This is a Christian school.  They can enforce what they deem to be "Christian Values".    

If you don't agree with those, you can go elsewhere.  To a public school.  To a school with different values.  

They're being dicks, but the First Amendment swings two ways.  They are WELL within their rights to be dicks.  

Kids at my school got threatened with similar consequences for MUCH less.  One girl got threatened with not being able to walk because of an inappropriate Myspace.  Private school is a privilege, and if you don't like the additional rules that go along with it, you can always go public to get your education.  You choose not to, you choose to accept the additional rules and consequences.  

Can't have your private, Christian educational cake and eat it too.  

[FloraKitty35]

5 hours ago, Georgiana said:

 

While I don't agree with the decision, religious institutions have a right to play by their own rules.  They have a right to enforce their religious rules, values, etc. within their own organizations.  They have a right to punish students who disregard their Code of Conduct.  This is a Christian school.  They can enforce what they deem to be "Christian Values".    

I concur, she and her parents knew the rules.  

[Four is Enough]

This is going on in my hometown. Did the article say that the school continued to take her tuition, and allow her to participate in daily school activities? Well, they did. She just can't walk the stage at graduation.

 

HYPOCRITES!

 

She did what she had to do, apologized and confessed to the entire school, and still they are punishing her? Where's the compassion? Where's the kindness?

[dpndetfarm]

I'd maybe say fair enough @Georgiana except that, once again, it is a rule only the female can be punished for, provided there needs to be proof of the sin. 

Still, I would argue I doubt the policy spells out the consequences of being a sinful (generally normal) teenager. Show me where it says if there is proof of fornication "thou wilt not walketh down the hypocritical aisle of religiouseth  education". If it does,  then maybe there is some rational reason in barring the girl from walking down the aisle, but  I guarantee you that 1/4, minimum, of the males that walk the aisle on graduation day have fornicated, either with Rosey, or an actual human being.

[Mercer]

8 hours ago, Georgiana said:

While I don't agree with the decision, religious institutions have a right to play by their own rules.  They have a right to enforce their religious rules, values, etc. within their own organizations.  They have a right to punish students who disregard their Code of Conduct.  This is a Christian school.  They can enforce what they deem to be "Christian Values".    

If you don't agree with those, you can go elsewhere.  To a public school.  To a school with different values.  

They're being dicks, but the First Amendment swings two ways.  They are WELL within their rights to be dicks.  

Kids at my school got threatened with similar consequences for MUCH less.  One girl got threatened with not being able to walk because of an inappropriate Myspace.  Private school is a privilege, and if you don't like the additional rules that go along with it, you can always go public to get your education.  You choose not to, you choose to accept the additional rules and consequences.  

Can't have your private, Christian educational cake and eat it too.  

I don't disagree with most of what you're saying, but I think the highlighted parts are a problematic place to lay blame when you remember that we're talking about high school.

Yes, the school is legally in the right. But it's not realistic to suggest that a high schooler can simply unilaterally decide to go to a different school and is fully responsible for the consequences of the school choice that was made on their behalf by their parents.

The "you" who could have made a different school choice is not the same "you" who is being punished here, and conflating them doesn't really acknowledge the lack of control children and youth have over their situations, even if on a practical level that doesn't change the result.

[bekkah]

My thing is that she obviously did not choose this school for herself, her parents did. It is sad to let her accomplishments go by the wayside. She made a mistake, asked for forgiveness and apparently is aware of her mistakes. The school should allow her to walk but I feel if I were her I would not want to walk because my school got pressured to let me from the media. 

 

She chose life and she will have consequences for the rest of her life because of her decisions. 

[Glasgowghirl]

The School may not agree with her original decision to have sex but they should be applauding her for not dropping out and graduating when many pregnant teens don't. She worked hard and should get the opportunity to walk with her friends. 

[sawasdee]

I wonder how many of her friends/classmates/schoolmates will question 'christianity' , having seen this example of judgmental hypocrisy?

This may be an epic shot in the foot by the school. If they had shown loving forgiveness, and portrayed christianity, they would not have been known country if not world wide for their narrow mindedness.

[47of74]

6 hours ago, sawasdee said:

I wonder how many of her friends/classmates/schoolmates will question 'christianity' , having seen this example of judgmental hypocrisy?

This made me remember what former reich to life activist  Elizabeth Wardle once said about how she changed;

http://www.alternet.org/story/42888/the_rhetoric_of_abortion%3A_reflections_from_a_former_pro-life_activist

Quote

The more I learned the more I began to let go of my carefully held certainties. After my worldview took on a few more shades of gray, my friends started telling me about their abortions. I had to come to terms with the fact that the women against whom I had so emphatically protested in high school were good people, people I knew, people I would want for my friends. What to do with that? Love the sinner, hate the sin? Fairly easy to say in Christian theory, but my friends didn't seem like sinners. They seemed like girls who had fallen in love, or been taken advantage of, or even raped.

I started to wonder about sin, and why so much sin in the Christian tradition falls on women, centers around women's bodies.

By the end of college, my former certainty about abortion had completely deserted me. I had arrived at a place where I couldn't identify myself as pro-life any longer. I now believed in choice, but without advocating abortion. I still believed a fetus was a life--but I had come to understand there were other issues at stake, too. Was mine a pro-choice position? None of the pro-choice rhetoric with which I was familiar led me to believe it was; having once been a true believer in the pro-life movement, I found nothing in the rhetoric of the pro-choice movement that appealed to me or adequately stated my position.

 

[sawasdee]

1 hour ago, 47of74 said:

I started to wonder about sin, and why so much sin in the Christian tradition falls on women, centers around women's bodies.

1 hour ago, 47of74 said:

 

Sorry I screwed up the quote boxes.

But 'so much sin falls on women' more or less sums up most fundamentalist positions.

Men and boys are not responsible for child sexual abuse, infidelity or just about anything else!

Women are supposed to be abject and willing to accept the blame for any transgressions of their male counterparts. The latter have no responsibility at all.

They apparently live by the bible - can they quote to me the passages which give them a pass for abusing the female half of the population?

I thought Jesus taught that we take resposibility for our own actions?

,

 

[Carm_88]

I think she should be able to get her diploma if it's important to her. Why not? I don't think that she should be held up as an example of the pro-life movement. She chose to not abort the baby, many teens do. You're not some special angel child because you choose to continue your pregnancy. 

[Toothfairy]

Prolife-Don't abort. It's murder. 

Baby born and single mom parenting- My tax dollars. Get a job. Should've kept your legs closed

1 hour ago, Carm_88 said:

I think she should be able to get her diploma if it's important to her. Why not? I don't think that she should be held up as an example of the pro-life movement. She chose to not abort the baby, many teens do. You're not some special angel child because you choose to continue your pregnancy. 

I have a teen mom right now. You should see the hypocrisy. 

[smittykins]

6 hours ago, Toothfairy said:

 

Prolife-Don't abort. It's murder. 

Baby born and single mom parenting- My tax dollars. Get a job. Should've kept your legs closed.

 

Give that baby to a two-parent, heterosexual, Christian couple(preferably with a SAHM)who can give him/her a better life than you ever could.

(Just to clarify, I have nothing against adoption, provided it's freely chosen and no pressure from family/clergy/"crisis pregnancy centers.")

[JMarie]

1.  It's weird that the school's website only has an apology letter from the principal.  No actual information about the school, the tuition, the sports teams.  Just the apology.  http://heritage-academy.net/

2.  The donate button at the bottom of the page isn't helping matters.

3.  Maddi probably isn't going to be attending Bob Jones (ever!), so she's spared that additional awfulness.  See, there's a silver lining for every situation.

[smittykins]

Pregnant teen barred from graduation has own ceremony