There were so many things that Haywood High School Principal Dorothy Bond could have talked about to her Brownsville, Tenn., students. There's academic success, athletics and possibilities for career and college. Maybe she could have even cautioned against bullying.
Instead, at a recent meeting with students, she allegedly opted to be the bully herself, pointing to a bunch of gay students and telling them they were going to hell, and then adding that pregnant students' lives were over.
"At first she was talking about PDA, and she turned around and she directly pointed to the gay people and said if you're gay you're going to hell, and if you're pregnant, your life is over," Amber Whittiemore said.
The sad thing is, we're sure this longtime educator wanted the best for her students. But even if she really holds those troubling views (and we realize a lot of Americans do — see the field of Republican presidential hopefuls), how clueless does she have to be to think it's a good idea to share them in that context? She has now resigned amid a (not at all surprising) controversy surrounding the comments.
According to a news release from the ACLU, Bond also said that gay students were "not on God's path" and were "ruining their lives."
"When I heard about it, I was outraged," said Haywood High parent Tony Snipes. "That's not her role. Her role as educator, as principal, is to encourage them regardless of their circumstances or situations."
The next day, Snipes was told that Bond said, "I'm sorry if I offended you, but my view is still the same."
Guess the big lesson for Bond this school year is that bigotry and hate aren't welcome there, either.
Read more at ABC24 and Gawker.
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