Destiny McDermitt, a junior at Hill-McCloy High School in Montrose, Michigan, has become the center of a media firestorm after her teacher denied her the right to pen an essay about her two moms.
The New York Post reports that McDermitt’s teacher, who remains unidentified, assigned her to write an essay about a subject for which she had passion. McDermitt’s mothers, Angela McDermitt-Jackson and Chris Jackson, married when marriage equality became legal in 2015. The 17-year-old student selected the topic of same-sex marriage as the subject of her essay, only to have the instructor say the topic was too controversial and might offend her classmates.
Undeterred, Destiny asked if she could first discuss the topic with her classmates. The teacher also refused to let her do so, prompting Destiny to pen a letter to school administrators instead.
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“[It] offended me because I have two moms [who] are married and I really thought it was inappropriate,” McDermitt wrote in her letter.
McDermitt’s mother, Angela McDermitt-Jackson, who also works for the school district as a bus driver, also expressed outrage. “These are our children,” she said. “We went through issues when we decided to be together, but these are our children. They don’t need to be subjected to it.”
School officials have, for the moment, stood by the instructor, pointing out that she also refused to let her students write about other subjects like animal cruelty. “The teacher was thinking smaller and the kids were thinking bigger,” Montrose Community Schools Superintendent Linden Moore said in a statement. He also acknowledged that the teacher would need to be more clear when passing out assignments to her class.
Somewhat ironically, the entire fiasco prompted several of Destiny’s classmates to write essays defending her, perhaps proving that it’s more disruptive to refuse to discuss some topics rather than address them. The McDermitt family has since filed a complaint over the whole affair with the ACLU.
DarkZephyr
“School officials have, for the moment, stood by the instructor, pointing out that she also refused to let her students write about other subjects like animal cruelty.”
The hell? So two people of the same sex in a loving marriage are comparable to animal cruelty?
jayceecook
“The teacher was thinking smaller and the kids were thinking bigger. ”
That is one of the biggest problems with our educational system right there.
sillyme
I’d say get the School systems officials replaced and that and any teacher like that and move them way out to another country and bring in new people that will allow kids to write about real subjects that they see and feel are important to them and such with hope of more kids like this in that area will bring more awareness outbound from others but then again this may not make the national news either for it’s a gay subject but who knows.
Cam
They all need to be fired. The school is defending her by claiming that her having parents who are married and love her is the same as writing about Animal cruelty?
So let’s see, the teacher is a bigot and also doesn’t like it when people want to stop animal cruelty. She should not be around kids.
Felecia
This stuff isn’t ‘new’ at all….when I was in 3rd grade in 1970, I wasn’t allowed to discuss my parents’ divorce because it might upset the other students and cause anxiety for THEIR parents ‘marital discord’, lol…even mentioning divorce back then was a dirty word; today 50% of all marriages end that way, and as a society we’re now conditioned to it and waaay too jaded on the subject…give it a few years. When every other student has same-sex parents and nobody cares anymore, there will be a brand-new thing to demonize in schools. Probably somebody ‘in love’ with one of those ultra-lifelike sex bots, and demands to be allowed to marry it and expects his kids to call it ‘Mom’, lol….whatever it is, there will always be SOMETHING that a bigoted teacher feels it’s appropriate to demean in his/her classroom. And teachers wonder why the kids don’t listen or show any respect, lol…..
balehead
Nobody needs this kind of “activism”…They are just looking to Get famous and make a few dollars suing…