The Houston Chronicle reports that two teachers at First Baptist Academy in Baytown, Texas, were fired after going to a drag show in Houston. A 19-year veteran of the school, Kristi Maris was told she had failed to "act in a godly and moral fashion at work, on Facebook and in my community," with the same consequence for a colleague not named in media reports.
Maris agreed to the clause but wasn't aware attending a drag show violated it, she told Lodhia. "They're entertainers. I would've never thought in a million years that this would happen. Never. We were in disbelief. We still are. We were heartbroken. We had relationships with parents and the kids, and I didn't even get to say goodbye to a lot of the kids," Maris told ABC 13.
The veteran teacher said the firing clashes with her devout Christian beliefs. "For almost 20 years, I've taught children to love each other. I've talked to them and told them, 'You have to get along. God loves us all equally.' And that's the way we should be," Maris told ABC 13's Lodhia."We should love everybody, and that's what we've been teaching, but they're expecting us not to do that."
It would be cynical and false to say that this is just what Christianity is in America. But it's maybe what Christianity is at the sort of school whose sign is a canvas banner on a rope.
