From the CBC:
A Christian student suspended from a high school in Nova Scotia for sporting a T-shirt with the slogan “Life is wasted without Jesus” vows to wear it when he returns to class next week.
William Swinimer, who’s in Grade 12, was suspended from Forest Heights Community School in Chester Basin in Lunenburg County for five days. He’s due to return to class on Monday.
The devout Christian says the T-shirt is an expression of his beliefs, and he won’t stop wearing it.
[….]
Nancy Pynch-Worthylake, board superintendent, said some students and teachers found the T-shirt offensive.
“When one is able or others are able to interpret it as, ‘If you don’t share my belief then your life is wasted,’ that can be interpreted by some as being inappropriate,” she said.
I wonder how the delicate students, whose fragile sensibilities were offended by a slogan they were free to ignore, will cope when they enter the big bad world of business with all its slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Perhaps they will all become teachers and retain the luxury of being easily offended.
I also wonder what the reaction would have been to this t-shirt:
Interesting that the CBC’s website is showing overwhelming support for the student…
It seems he will be allowed to wear his t-shirt after all.
and a “facilitator” will be brought in to teach people how not to offend anyone:
On reading the name of the school board superintendent, I did a double-take.Is that name for real? If so, no wonder she’s hypersensitive.
Yes, it brought to mind Monty Python’s Throatwobbler Mangrove:
The only way not to offend anyone is not to make any definite or positive statements. Perish the thought that anyone might have the effrontery to tell the truth…