WHAT? NO ARRESTS?

From past form, we know that there would have been if Christians had done this outside a homosexual organization or meeting

Nearly 1,000 gays, lesbians and their supporters gathered in freezing temperatures and spitting snow at Focus on the Family headquarters Sunday to declare it a "toxic religion zone" and its director James Dobson "a danger to himself and the country." "The poison that comes out of that place leads to suffering and death," said the Rev. Mel White, director of Soulforce, a national gay rights advocacy group that organized the three-hour protest. "We're the ones who have to bury the gay teenagers who kill themselves because their parents have been quoting Jim Dobson to them," White said. White's fiery speech kicked off the rally, which drew hundreds from across the country and Colorado to Dobson's sprawling hilltop campus. The rally came as Dobson's national profile is rising, a week after he appeared on the nationwide evangelical Christian broadcast, Justice Sunday, condemning U.S. Senate Democrats for opposing seven Bush nominees to federal courts.

Police closed off the street in front of Focus headquarters to accommodate the crowd. Long streams of balloons and creative costumes brought the only swatches of color to the leaden cold day, but weather did not chill demonstrators' spirits or their message. "Focus on the Family does not focus on families. They teach from a theology that is morally bankrupt," said Jacob Reitan, Soulforce's youth director, who stood between his mother and father. "It teaches mothers and fathers to reject their gay sons and their lesbian daughters, and it has to end. We cannot go on any longer dividing our families."

Other parents came. Carol and Dean Reyman drove from South Dakota. They said friends and relatives deserted them when their 34-year- old daughter announced she was a lesbian seven years ago. "We felt alone for the longest time. It shouldn't make a difference. She's the same person; yet they look at her differently," Carol Reyman said.

In a small tent on their property, a dozen Focus on the Family staffers watched, including Tom Minnery, the organization's vice president for government and public policy. Minnery said gay activism is actually causing Christians to defend their values more strongly. Citing state constitutional amendments supporting traditional marriage in 13 states last year, he said most Americans don't believe marriage should be expanded to include gays. To permit same-sex marriage, Minnery said, "you have to stand against all of civilization, which says that marriage is one man, one woman, and against the totality of social science that says a child does best with a mom and a dad."

It was not same-sex marriage that occupied the Soulforce speeches Sunday. It was Focus on the Family's condemnation of homosexuality itself, the damage its position has done to gay and lesbian youths suffering confusion and guilt, and the toll it has taken on their families, speakers said. White told of a gay man who became Christian and, facing the conflict between faith and sexuality, penned a suicide note to God: "I don't know how else to fix this." "It has to be fixed here, at Focus, which is saying we are beasts, that our agenda is to recruit and molest children, that we are the worst threat this country has ever seen. The polluting, toxic lies are taking lives," White said.....

Focus on the Family also announced it would be closed to the public Monday, when Soulforce had planned to deliver more than 1,000 letters from families of gays condemning its stance against homosexuality. "It will not be open to the public to ensure the safety of our staff," Focus spokeswoman Sonja Swiatkiewicz said.

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TOTALLY UNHINGED REACTION TO A SMALL MISTAKE

A school Principal who is all blather and no heart. A small and unmalicious mistake likely to hurt a kid for life. The disgusting Principal concerned would even be feeling good about himself over all this:

On a Thursday morning several weeks ago, Tyler Huetter found a BB pistol on his way to school and put it in his backpack. He is now banished from every public school in the United States for the next 11 months. The 12-year-old former Hellgate Elementary School sixth-grader must also submit to regular urine testing and take anger management classes. His parents, Terry and Sheryl Huetter, say they lack both the education and time to home-school him, and don't have the money to send him to private school.

Sitting at his kitchen table with his parents on a Friday morning, Tyler doesn't appear to be a threat to public safety. He wears his baseball cap backwards, but takes it off after being reminded. In school, he liked history and playing the drums in sixth-grade band. Now he says he watches a lot of MTV and accompanies his dad in the evenings when Terry goes to a second job cleaning offices. "I try to practice my skateboard, but it's kind of boring when you're alone," Tyler said of his days. "I sleep a lot because I'm bored."

From the inside of Hellgate Elementary, Superintendent Doug Reisig sees one of the gravest threats his school can face. "The gun involved looked exactly like the Beretta pistol carried by the sheriff's department deputies," Reisig said. "If a child pulls that gun out on the playground, the officer's reaction would be to shoot immediately. And that endangers everyone in the school. "My No. 1 priority is to provide for the safety and security for the 1,200 children here," Reisig continued. "Any child in that situation (of finding a gun) makes a choice. Should a child have chosen that path (of bringing the gun to school), my responsibility remains with the children who follow the rules. "We have a social contract with parents to keep their children safe. I would always make the recommendation to remove the child for the full calendar year," he said.

No one involved disputes the basic facts of Tyler Huetter's case. On March 17, while walking to his bus stop in the morning, he found the BB pistol on the ground. He also discovered it contained a small drug pipe in the magazine. "I saw the gun - it was pretty cool - so I picked it up," Tyler recalled. "The pipe fell out. I was being stupid and I put it back in. I put it (the gun) in my backpack and went to school."

He put the backpack in his locker. During the day, he got nervous about what would happen if the gun were found. A fellow student offered to stash it in her locker. Tyler said he gave her his locker combination, and she moved his backpack to her locker. The gun was never displayed. But word got to a teacher that there was a gun in the school. Administrators locked down the middle school building and searched the sixth-grade lockers, according to the school incident report provided to the Huetters. After finding nothing, they searched the eighth-grade lockers and found the backpack with the gun and the pipe. Both Tyler and the other student were taken to the office and their parents were called.......

"It's been pretty drastic for Tyler," his father Terry Huetter said. "I agree - he should have been kicked out. But I don't have the education to teach him at home. And we don't have the $4,000 to $8,000 a year they want at Valley Christian (Elementary School) or St. Joseph's (Catholic Elementary School). And we can't get any books or lessons from the school." Terry Huetter said he asked Hellgate Elementary and Missoula County School superintendent officials for help with learning materials for Tyler but was turned down.

State law says that the weapons violation does not prevent a school district from "offering instructional activities sanctioned by the district to a student who has been expelled." But Reisig added he has a direct duty to provide for the hundreds of children still in school and no duty to offer special resources to a child no longer enrolled. The law makes exceptions for some students in special education programs but puts the responsibility for educating expelled "regular" students squarely on the parents.

Vielleux said she had no good answer for the dilemma of expulsion. Especially since the tragedies at Columbine and Red Lake, school districts have trumpeted the no-guns policy. Hellgate Elementary parents are required to sign their children's student handbooks to ensure they've read them. And the consequences are clearly laid out. At the same time, it's well-known that the chances of a child successfully continuing education after expulsion are slim. "At some point, we're going to say, 'We have to give up on that child in order to help other ones,' " Vielleux said. "But then we know: There they are, out in the community unsupervised, and you know how much trouble young kids can get into."

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