UNION TOWNSHIP, New Jersey, October 17, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – New Jersey school officials are investigating allegations that a teacher criticized homosexuality on her personal Facebook page. Special education teacher Viki Knox had posted complaints about a Union High School display recognizing October as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History month.
According to the Star-Ledger, Knox posted the display, which included photographs of homosexual icons Virginia Woolf, Harvey Milk, and Neil Patrick Harris, and commented, “I’m pitching a fit!”
Knox, who is the faculty advisor to the high school’s student prayer group, The Seekers Fellowship, said that while she had friends and loved ones who were homosexual, she believed that the way they lived was “against the nature and character of God” and that the high school was “not the setting to promote, encourage, support and foster homosexuality.”
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Knox also reportedly said that “homosexuality is a perverted spirit that has existed from the beginning of creation” and that it is a “sin” that “breeds like cancer.” Her Facebook page has been removed from public view.
The Union Public School District said it is “taking the matter very seriously.”
“We will take all appropriate actions,” said Chief School Administrator Patrick Martin, according to the New York Times.
Homosexual activists have tied Knox’s comments to New Jersey’s anti-bullying law, which was adopted after a university student, Tyler Clementi, killed himself after learning he had been webcast kissing another man.
“Teachers are supposed to be role models for our children, not hatemongers,” said Steven Goldstein, who chairs the homosexual activist group Garden State Equality. “I don’t see how this teacher could possibly be effective in implementing the state’s new anti-bullying law, designed precisely to teach children that bullying, including cyber-bullying, is unacceptable.”
Goldstein’s group is demanding Knox’s dismissal because of her views.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Jersey has defended Knox’s First Amendment right to make the comments, but has also said that the school district should investigate whether Knox is performing her job according to school policies.
The pastor of Knox’s church has come to the teacher’s defense. “No one is pointing to homosexuality as the ultimate sin. We all have sinned,” said Rev. Milton B. Hobbs, pastor of New Covenant Fellowship in Clark, N.J., according to the Washington Post. “It’s not saying that people who are gay sin any more or less than anyone else. But to say that the Bible doesn’t say it’s a sin would be untrue. It does say that.”
“Any Christian who makes a stand that’s unpopular can expect to be persecuted. That’s in the Bible, too,” Hobbs said. “But no American should expect to be prosecuted for exercising free speech. At what point does that stop?”