Hate Group Renews Its Efforts to Punish Lesbian for "Teaching While Gay"

Thursday, hate group leader Mat Staver sent out an email renewing the efforts of Liberty Counsel to have Hillsborough County Public Schools in Tampa discipline math teacher Lora Jane Riedas who is a lesbian and who has already been cleared of wrongdoing. In brief:

• On April 19, 2017 Liberty Counsel sent a threatening letter to the school superintendent claiming that Ms. Riedas was treating Christian students unfairly (supposedly she was requiring them to remove crosses) and that she was promoting homosexuality (I am paraphrasing). What this was really about is that Ms. Riedas is active in GLSEN. Liberty Counsel was trying to put the brakes on anything she might be doing in regards to the Day of Silence which was scheduled for April 21.
• On April 24 the superintendent's office notified me that no students or parents had filed any complaints.
• In early May, the school district cleared Ms. Riedas of Liberty Counsel's baseless complaint.

Liberty Counsel is designated a hate group for being untruthful about gay people. It should come as no surprise that they have been untruthful about a gay teacher.

The new email brings new allegations:

Liberty Counsel renewed a previous demand with a follow-up letter to Hillsborough County Public Schools regarding its pitiful investigation and whitewash of the discriminatory bullying behavior of Lora Jane Riedas, a math teacher at Riverview High School.

Liberty Counsel now represents four students who independently confirmed and provided additional information regarding the classroom political activism and bullying of Riedas. Her social media confirms her activism during class time. School officials failed to properly address and discipline Riedas' behavior, despite the obvious contradictory evidence.

Ms. Riedas has consistently endeavored to provide a safe space for all of her students. A good indication that this was BS was the fact that there were no complaints lodged against Riedas. Staver has no way of knowing when Ms. Riedas is, or is not, in class. It has taken them nearly a month to find four students.

Reidas admitted to the school investigator that she used personal Twitter and Facebook accounts but stated it was not during instructional time. She also stated that she did not use her role as the Riverview Gay-Straight Alliance (RGSA) sponsor to coerce students to participate in Riverview's Day of Silence. Ms. Riedas' (and Hillsborough Schools) also claim that RGSA club activities are exclusively "student led."

That sounds about right to me.

But, Riedas' social media and emails were sent during instructional hours through the Riverview internal internet, promoting the club, GLSEN events and political viewpoints. Moreover, Riedas specifically promoted the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network's (GLSEN) publicly coercive "Teacher's Guide" to pro-LGBT classroom activism on "Day of Silence," without any caveats, urging other teachers to implement its classroom coercion.

The one example that Staver provides is an April 7 re-tweet of a Huffington Post tweet (oh, the horror of it all).

Here's how to talk to kids about what it means to be an LGBTQ ally https://t.co/FgAb7bPSIx via @huffpostqueer

— LoraJane Riedas (@LoraJane) April 7, 2017

I did not know that her students were required to subscribe to her Twitter feed. Imagine that.

Riedas told the investigator that only the students who wore rosary beads were asked to remove them because she said the rosary is a "gang" symbol.

That is school policy. Riedas did not make that up and this is a rehash of the unfounded complaint from early April.

But, three students wearing small cross necklaces or crucifixes were told by Riedas to "take it off" or "take it off or cover it up." One student wore a rosary, which is neither a "gang" symbol nor against school policy. The rosary was provided to the student after receiving it for confirmation, as a symbol of faith.

Did any of them complain to the principal as is their right? Why not? Riedas, by the way, is also Christian. What is the incentive? None of this makes any sense. Liberty Counsel never makes any sense. Staver gets so perturbed by gay people, especially a gay teacher in his home state, that he loses whatever critical thinking skills he might possess.

This is just more gratuitous noise. Ms. Riedas, by all accounts, does an exemplary job. I guess with the final dismissal of Roy Moore, Mr. Staver has more time on his hands. He is looking for another anti-gay project to replace defending Moore's bigotry. There is a pattern here.

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