Friday nights in high school are supposed to be remembered for gathering with friends, donning school colors and cheering your school on to a hopeful victory.
Instead, a high school in Burlington, Vermont, made it about sexuality.
On Oct. 15, Burlington High School held a football game at its Buck Hard Stadium. The host Seawolves, with players from Burlington, South Burlington and Winooski high schools, defeated the St. Johnsbury Hilltoppers 35-14, the local outlet Seven Days reported.
However, that event was overshadowed by the immoral display at halftime.
According to the Daily Mail, the halftime show consisted of a group of students and faculty dressed in drag parading around the field. They began by chanting, “Drag Ball!” before breaking into a lip-sync performance of “Rainbow Reign” by Todrick Hall.
Pictures and videos from the event are horrifying, to say the least.
VT: Burlington’s high school homecoming drag show leaves LGBTQ+ students with mixed emotions.
Principal Lauren McBride waited near the field, her walkie-talkie crackled: “They’re coming out, and they look fabulous.”
Child abuse.
Gender confusion.
At a public school. pic.twitter.com/btqXJBXYf0
— Dalton (@DaltonReport) October 17, 2021
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“We got kings, we got queens, we got in-betweens,” a stadium announcer declared, according to the Daily Mail. “We need you to give it up for all these performers.”
There are so many issues with this event that it’s hard to know where to start, but I’ll try my best to break it down.
First, encouraging students to engage in this type of behavior is completely irresponsible coming from adults. It’s bad enough for staff members to participate in the disturbing event, but some staff members were even more involved.
According to the Daily Mail, Burlington High School’s Gender-Sexuality Alliance was behind the planning for the event. English teacher Andrew LeValley, an adviser for that alliance, was the person who devised the idea for the drag show — and participated.
Seven Days reported that LeValley “channeled Marie Antoinette, with a ruffled taffeta frock and a voluminous blonde pouf wig embellished with jaunty peacock feathers.”
“I was just really hoping to give our students — who are both out and the students that were in the stands who are not out — a moment to shine and feel loved, and know that there is a place for them in public schools,” he said, according to the Daily Mail.
Encouraging students to feel loved is a great goal, but that is not the same thing as pushing them to engage in behavior that, from a Christian perspective, is “detestable” and “shameful” in the eyes of God. In fact, promoting gender dysphoria is one of the least loving things you could do.
The age question is another huge problem with this event. While drag shows and drag bars are becoming more common around the country, most of them are restricted to people ages 18 or older.
In high school, the majority of students are minors.
Actively promoting this content at a school event is morally reprehensible. This sort of behavior is not morally appropriate for anyone to engage in, but it is especially concerning in regards to students who have not even reached adulthood.
Comments by Ezra Totten, the student leader of the Gender-Sexuality Alliance, about the event show just how twisted our society has become.
“Things went amazing,” Totten said, according to the Daily Mail. “The stands were completely packed. It was just so heartwarming to see.”
It is deeply saddening that a student could look at the behavior shown in the above video and call it “heartwarming.” More than anything, that is an indictment of adults such as LeValley who have convinced students that their twisted view of morality should be praised.
As teachers encourage sinful behavior in students who may not even know any better, it is nearly impossible not to think of the words of the epistle of James in the Bible.
“Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly,” James 3:1 says.
The fact that the teachers and orchestrators of this event promoted gender dysphoria and celebrated it openly speaks to our fallen world and our culture’s desperate need for God. We have fallen so far from grace that we’re operating out of the created order and need the redemption only a Savior can provide.
In times where it seems the definitions of wrong and right have been completely confused, our only hope is in the God who is above all things.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
