What a fucking lie. They knew what they were doing.Samuel Felinton shuffled into his high school auditorium last week for what his teacher told him was a mandatory assembly. Little did he know, the guest speaker was an evangelical preacher holding a Christian revival assembly.
Despite asking, Felinton, who is Jewish, says he wasn't allowed to be excused from it.
On February 2, students involved in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, a non-profit Christian sports ministry, conducted an assembly during a non-instructional homeroom period at Huntington High School in Huntington, West Virginia, Cabell County Schools spokesperson Jedd Flowers told CNN in a statement.
During the meeting, Felinton says Nik Walker, an evangelical preacher, instructed the auditorium to close their eyes, raise their arms in prayer to give their lives over to Jesus for purpose and salvation. Those who didn't follow the Bible, he said, would go to hell when they died.
*snip*
On the day of the assembly, Felinton asked his teacher for permission to leave but says he was denied that opportunity.
"Student attendance was voluntary, and there was a signup process in place prior to the event so teachers would know what students had requested to attend," said Flowers, the Cabell County Schools spokesperson.
Felinton, however, says his teacher left he and his peers no choice about attending and offered no details on what the assembly was about prior to them walking into the auditorium.
"Two teachers mistakenly took their entire class to the assembly," Flowers said. "Those teachers have been corrected and the district does not anticipate a similar issue in the future."
Flowers would not comment on what, if any, disciplinary action has been taken against the two teachers, how many students attended the assembly. He did not elaborate on what the school and district is doing to ensure an incident like this doesn't happen again.
They say you have freedom of religion. Uh, yeah, freedom of what flavor or Evangelical Christianity you prefer, nothing else. One thing conservatives will tell is that the Constitution does NOT guarantee freedom FROM religion.
No one has a right to try to shove their faith down my throat.