Pro-Life Leader Says When God is Expelled From Schools, Students Suffer
by Jim Brown
December 23, 2003
(AgapePress) - A pro-family activist is denouncing a North Carolina public school for suspending a Christian guidance counselor.
Concord High School recently suspended Beth Pinto with pay for sharing Bible verses with a student who was struggling with homosexuality. Although the student requested biblical advice, according to school officials Pinto's actions violated the so-called "separation of Church and State."
But the guidance counselor's suspension was lifted after the high school received hundreds of complaint calls from local parents and Christians across the U.S. Now Pinto has been fully reinstated, and has gained a large number of Christian supporters who remain fed up with the school. One of them is Pastor Flip Benham with the group Operation Save America.
Benham says Pinto's case is a microcosm of what is taking place in America's schools. "Kids can ask for condoms, and a teacher is rewarded if he gives a condom but is punished if he gives a student a scripture that would provide light to what they're dealing with," the pastor says.
The pastor contends that many public school administrators across the United States are employing the same strong-arm tactics that were used in the Concord case. "This is a battle that's not only in Concord High School; it is endemic with public schools and government schools all across this land, where Christian teachers are intimidated by administrations," he says.
The pro-family activist comments that it is a sad day when God has been expelled from America's schools and banished from its schoolyards, and His presence replaced by metal detectors, condoms, drugs and unprecedented violence.
"Bloodshed is really coursing down the corridors of our high schools," Benham says, "and we sit and look at each other with awkward amazement, [asking] 'Why are our kids killing each other? Why are they committing suicide? Why are they losing themselves in drugs and in gangs?'"
Operation Save America members recently held a press conference and a demonstration at Concord High School, where they encouraged Christian pastors and lay leaders, parents, and other concerned citizens to speak out against the intimidation of Christian teachers and counselors and against attempts to bar expressions of Christian faith from school campuses.
