Students at Bartram Trail High School stomp on a Pride flag (left) and wave a makeshift Confederate flag — Images: Twitter
A Florida school district is promising action after high school students waved Confederate flags and yelled anti-gay slurs at members of a Gay-Straight Alliance club.
Students at Bartram Trail High School in St. Johns County held the anti-LGBTQ rally after school on Friday, Sept. 17, Action News Jax reports.
Video of the incident shows multiple students standing near members of the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance and yelling anti-LGBTQ slurs at them, including, “There’s only two genders, faggot.”
One mother, who didn’t want to be identified in order to protect her family, said that her daughter had a Pride flag ripped out of her hand.
That flag was later stomped on by members of the rally, who were also waving homemade Confederate flags.
“It was terrifying, it was absolutely terrifying,” the mother said.
Her daughter was “approached by one of the boys, who started yelling at her saying, ‘You’re gay. You have no rights,’ and kind of spitting at her. She walked past it and got on her bus.”
The mother is now urging for the students involved in the rally to be expelled. She has also sent videos of the incident to the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office.
“Enough is enough,” she said. It is time for that school board to take action at that school, and it needs some serious new leadership.”
She added: “I think if you show that level of hate or attacked at people just for people being who they are, there’s no tolerance for that.”
Another mother told News4Jax that the video she watched was “shocking” and “scary.”
“It made me wonder what could possibly happen at this school to put students in danger,” she said. “And it was kind of akin to videos you would see in the early 1960s, during the Civil Rights Movement.”
The mother added that she was “very scared to see that kind of hate. To me this could be described as a hate crime happening on the campus where my child is at school.”
The school district confirmed that it is “actively addressing” the incident, with a spokesperson telling Action News Jax that the students involved “will receive consequences that align with our student code of conduct.”
“This behavior is not acceptable and is not indicative of the culture and students at BTHS,” they added. “It is very disappointing that these students handled themselves in this way.”
St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office said that it had received videos from parents and would work with the district if necessary.
The city of St. Petersburg has installed 11 rainbow-colored bike racks in response to the removal of several street murals -- including a Pride-themed mural -- by the Florida Department of Transportation.
The racks were installed in the Grand Central District at Central Avenue and 25th Street, the former location of one of five murals removed at the direction of federal and state authorities.
The mural at Central Avenue and 25th Street featured colored stripes representing the progressive Pride flag and was located just steps from Ride'em Cowboy, one of the city’s best-known LGBTQ nightclubs and a "safe space" for the community, according to Florida Politics.
When Martha Nell Smith was a child, she was given a book called The Golden Treasury of Poetry. "I was a nerdy kid, I liked to read," the 72-year-old academic says, adding, "I also liked to play. I was a very sporty kid too. I was a tomboy."
The book contained several poems by Emily Dickinson. "I thought these look so simple, but when you think about it, they are really weird," she says. "But you could say that about almost any Dickinson poem."
Smith recounts the long and winding path that led her to become one of the foremost experts on Emily Dickinson, with a particular focus on the poet's secretly romance-laden letters to her sister-in-law, Susan Dickinson.
A Wisconsin man is maintaining his innocence after being accused of using Grindr to carry out a sinister catfishing scheme against another man.
Matthew Huebschman, 32, of Appleton, pleaded not guilty to a single charge of stalking during a December 15 hearing before Outagamie County Judge Carrie Schneider, according to Seehafer News.
Police allege that Huebschman used the gay dating app Grindr to impersonate the victim and invite men to the victim’s home without his knowledge, then watched from a nearby location as the men arrived.
These are challenging times for news organizations. And yet it’s crucial we stay active and provide vital resources and information to both our local readers and the world. So won’t you please take a moment and consider supporting Metro Weekly with a membership? For as little as $5 a month, you can help ensure Metro Weekly magazine and MetroWeekly.com remain free, viable resources as we provide the best, most diverse, culturally-resonant LGBTQ coverage in both the D.C. region and around the world. Memberships come with exclusive perks and discounts, your own personal digital delivery of each week’s magazine (and an archive), access to our Member's Lounge when it launches this fall, and exclusive members-only items like Metro Weekly Membership Mugs and Tote Bags! Check out all our membership levels here and please join us today!
You must be logged in to post a comment.