Students at St. Charles North High
School near Chicago won't face disciplinary action for wearing
anti-gay t-shirts to school last week, the
Daily Herald reported.
The students objected to the school's
participation in Ally Week, a campaign to bring awareness to anti-gay
bullying, by wearing “Straight Pride” t-shirts.
On Monday, 3 students wore t-shirts
that featured Straight Pride on the front and a Bible verse that
promotes violence against gay people on the back.
“If a man lay with a male as those
who lay with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination and
shall surely be put to death,” the Leviticus passage reads.
School officials asked the students to
black out the Bible quote with permanent maker and they agreed.
Two additional students wore Straight
Pride t-shirts without the Bible quote the following day.
School officials announced on Tuesday
that none of the students would not face disciplinary action, a
decision that riled some in the community.
“The quote on the back of the shirts
were pretty much a death threat towards all of the gay and lesbian
people at St. Charles North,” Michael Fairbanks, president of the
Gay-Straight Alliance at neighboring St. Charles East, told the St.
Charles Republican. “When people are being emotionally
hurt and distracted from having a healthy and safe learning
environment, the bullies should be persecuted and punished.”