MINNESOTA: Catholic High Schoolers Reject Anti-Gay Marriage Lecture

Knowing that they'd be eligible to vote in November, the administrators of a Minnesota Catholic high school held a seniors-only assembly in order to indoctrinate the entire class against same-sex marriage. The reaction of the students was unexpected.

"The first three-quarters of the presentation were really good," said senior Matt Bliss. "They talked about what is marriage and how marriage helps us as a society. Then it started going downhill when they started talking about single parents and adopted kids. They didn't directly say it, but they implied that kids who are adopted or live with single parents are less than kids with two parents of the opposite sex. They implied that a 'normal' family is the best family." "When they finally got to gay marriage, [students] were really upset," said Bliss. "You could look around the room and feel the anger. My friend who is a lesbian started crying, and people were crying in the bathroom."

Bliss was one of several students who stood up to argue with the representatives from the archdiocese. One girl held up a sign that said, "I love my moms." Mike O'Keefe, a spokesman for the school, said that other students were mad that some of the students spoke out and thought that some of them were "rude" to the visitors from the archdiocese. "We weren't being rude," countered Lydia Hannah, another student who spoke out. "But people were upset, and we weren't just going to sit there."

According to one student, the presenters compared gay relationships to bestiality. That was also met with great objections.