A teacher in Loudon County Virginia is finding support from outraged parents after he was suspended for refusing to bow to the trans agenda being pushed by his school district. Tanner Cross, a physical education teacher at Leesburg Elementary School, was suspended after telling the Loudon school board that he would not agree to their policy and lie to children by promoting leftist gender swapping ideology.
Teacher refuses to bow to trans agenda
The new policy which Cross is rebelling against specifies that parents who believe that their child should be a different gender are allowed to request that corresponding pronouns be used.
Staff and students who continue to use the real pronouns of these children will be punished, according to the policy.
At a school board meeting parents and some teachers rallied in defense of Mr. Cross, taking the opportunity to also condemn the district for teaching critical race theory.
Cross and other teachers denounced the school board and their new policy for forcing Christian employees to support behavior that violates their faith and conscience.
The Alliance Defending Freedom is defending Cross and fighting his suspension, arguing that the school district has violated his First Amendment rights by punishing him for speaking up about the policy.
The suspension of Cross was apparently motivated exclusively by the comments which he made in protest of the policy.
Major Constitutional battle looms
Cross reasonably believed that he had every right to speak out about the anti-Christian policy at a public meeting. The Loudon County School Board apparently felt differently.
Judge James E. Plowman agreed with Cross, ordering the district to reinstate Cross immediately. According to Plowman, the First Amendment rights of Cross were indeed being attacked.
While Plowman believes that the teacher will be victorious in a legal battle, the school board plans to fight the decision and appeal to the state Supreme Court.
According to the district, parents and students have claimed that they are afraid of coming to school while Cross is teaching. These complaints, they say, outweigh the beliefs and rights of the teacher.
The Alliance Defending Freedom remains confident that it will be able to give Cross a victory by pointing out that his Constitutional rights were clearly violated.
A drawn out legal battle over the issue could advance all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States and have wide-ranging consequences for America.
