It’s one thing to criticize or even flat-out insult Islam and other religions over the internet. It’s quite another thing, however, to show up to a public school wearing a shirt that says, “Islam is of the Devil.” Doing so led one Christian student to be sent home from school, which I feel was an entirely appropriate punishment
When the kid was interviewed, she admitted to not even really having any contact with any Muslims and that she doesn’t know why that is. Really? You can’t figure that one out?
During the interview, Wayne Sapp, the senior pastor at Dove World Outreach Center and the man responsible for making the shirts, gives a completely ridiculous false analogy where he attempts to compare a shirt calling other people’s religion of the devil to a hypothetical shirt declaring that your mom is really your mom. Cause obviously those two ideas are comparable in terms of their appropriateness in school. Ugh!
Now whenever stories like this come up, it always raises an important question. Do you think these guys would defend a person’s right to wear a shirt in school that read, “Jesus is of the Devil”? Given how many times I’ve seen evangelical Christians overreact to even billboards that simply tell non-believers that they’re not alone, I find it very, very hard to believe these guys would so passionately defend the rights of someone to wear a “Jesus is of the Devil” shirt in school. So what they’re doing here is special pleading. They want to have a privileged voice in our society. They want inequality.
Now as much of a defender of free speech that I am, I wouldn’t defend either shirt. I agree with the hosts in the first video above. Promoting your love of Jesus in school is fine with me. Attacking someone else’s beliefs in school is unnecessarily divisive and can reasonably be censored within a school setting.