When my son was in High School the Sociology teacher slipped in, as a guest speaker,

[kairos12]

a anti-abortion zealot to speak to the class. My son wouldn't have it. He began asking her questions about why equal time wasn't given to the pro-choice supporters. He caused quite a commotion (raised all kinds of polite hell) and the pro-choice speaker was brought in the next week.

By doing this he swam against a decided Red Republican Tide in this school.

This was 20 years ago.

My son remains unreservedly outspoken.

Always proud.

[Karadeniz]

1. Yay for him!!!

[KS Toronado]

2. For your son

[mjvpi]

3. I have two wonderful kids who would not exist had my wife not had choice about when to have kids.

Even if she had completed her graduate degree and became a professor (definitely possible to do with children) she an I never would have met. Our two, planned, unique organizations of energy would not exist.

Both of my kids, hell, young adults are woke as fuck. They are smart and motivated. I could not be more proud.

[ShazzieB]

28. Same thing with my daughter!

If I hadn't been able to get an abortion, I'd have had to drop out of college, at least for a while, and would never have met the guy who would become my husband and her father.

I shared this cartoon in the Pro Choice group recently:

[Whatthe_Firetruck]

37. Love it!

[malaise]

4. Bravo for your son

Rec

[niyad]

5. Ya did good!!

[Joinfortmill]

6. Love this.

[dchill]

7. You have actual evidence that you did a great job! 👍

[NJCher]

8. --

[marble falls]

9. Walked out of a speech class in collage over a nitwit who brought a .38 to class to demonstrate ...

... how to clean it, '73/'74 after I got out of the Navy.

Can you imagine the world of shit he'd been in if he tried that today?

[Hope22]

11. That's wild.

I was in a concealed carry class and one of the students brought his 80 yo father to the class. He had Parkinson’s and shook pretty bad. My heart went out to him but I did not want any part of him loading a gun or handling it near me. I just could not imagine him being able to shoot safely in an emergency situation.

[marble falls]

13. What bothered me more: I was one of two to walk out. I blunted the pin on my grandfather's old ...

... as hell revolver. He was in an independent section of an elder community.

[Hope22]

21. I always feel like the discomfort I may feel walking out

Is the least of my concerns. I’m glad you got up! I would have thought more would have but I’m not good at knowing what goes through the minds of most! Good fix on your grandfather’s gun. It’s hard getting old, that is for sure!

[txwhitedove]

14. That happened a week ago in grandson's high school class, gun fell out of kids backpack

onto the floor. Sheriff's office, cops showed up, kids let out early, kid with gun was arrested and NOT come back.

[marble falls]

16. As it should happen.

[DENVERPOPS]

20. The exact opposite

happened here in Denver a few weeks ago. Kid kicked out of Cherry Creek school system for having a gun, gets sent to Denver Public Schools who admitted him, he got another gun, and shot the two school faculty.......the only good thing is that we won't be paying to prosecute him and incarcerate him...........

[marble falls]

26. The "what should happen" I was supporting was: the police involvement and removal from that school.

[DENVERPOPS]

31. Hey MF

Just providing you with a true, recent, nightmare example of what happens when you don't do what should be done with these kids!!!!!!!

[marble falls]

33. Nighmare scenario describes it perfectly!

[maxsolomon]

10. If only Catholic Churches would do the same.

But no, the same celibates over and over.

[iluvtennis]

12. Love your outspoken son.

[pandr32]

15. I have a son like that, too.

It feels good to know your child has grown into a good person not afraid to stand up for fairness.

[Not Heidi]

17. Bravo, son!

👏👏👏👏

[republianmushroom]

18. like it

[mopinko]

19. i have 1 of those, too.

he’s abt in a phd in theoretical math. dropped out of u utah, where he had a full boat.
now, i think part of it was boredom. he’d pretty much learned what there was to learn and was basically teaching.
but he got fed up w the way the women were treated in the dept. looked around for a place to transfer to and found, yeah, nope, like that all over.
said fuck it, and got a job.
his twitter bio says- math and justice.

and he was like that from the time he was 3’ high.

[malaise]

22. Sweet

Love this

[kairos12]

24. The world needs more like him. Very good people.

[halfulglas]

23. Isn't it great to know you raised "good" kids instead of "successful" kids who are

Afraid to make good trouble.

[calimary]

25. I hope somebody reported what that teacher did, trying to

insert anti-choice propaganda “under the radar”?

VERY glad your son was already alert.

[barbtries]

27. thank you.

hats off to your son and you for raising him right!

[The Mouth]

29. Well Done!

[TdeV]

30. Yay for you both!

[FakeNoose]

32. This is awesome -- Hooray for your son!

[wysimdnwyg]

34. Good for your son!

In 2018, someone in my company thought it was a good idea to invite Marsha Blackburn to our office. I voiced my displeasure at this situation to our CTO (admittedly a friend of mine). On the day of the event, I wore a Phil Bredesen shirt (her opponent, and let me tell you, his staff couldn’t get me a shirt fast enough when I told them I intended to wear it to a quasi-event for Blackburn). When the time came for her to arrive, our leadership quietly shuffled her into a conference room, and the rest of us never saw her.

The point being, some people see only their own point of view, and don’t even consider other opinions. It’s important that we make it clear to them that they must consider that others don’t see things their way, and they should consider other opinions when they make such invitations.

[hunter]

35. We had a "fossil guy" haunting our children's public school.

He claimed to be some kind of geologist, had a good collection of fossils, was an entertaining speaker, but he was also a young earth Creationist who attributed most geologic features to the Biblical flood. He never overtly mentioned that when he was speaking to larger groups, but would try to rope children and adults in later, in smaller groups or individually.

My son, who'd placed in the California Science Fair, called him out to me.

I got on the guy's case with the local school board and principals. On the day that was supposed to be our showdown he simply didn't show.

I'd hear he was occasionally invited to private Christian schools and summer camps, but that was the last we saw of him in our public schools.

I think a lot of teachers loved him. He was almost like a day off work, and some of them were Evangelical Christians themselves.

This same sort of shit went on when I was in high school.

I remember a high school assembly lead by energetic twenty-something Christian Evangelical youth ministers that was essentially, but not overtly, an "abstinence only" cheer leading program that was entirely inappropriate for a public school.

This was after a girl in our class bled to death from a miscarriage because she was afraid her good Christian parents would find out she was having sex. Only a few people in our class knew that and they weren't talking. I heard it from my mom.

I hate these people. They worship a cruel and capricious god.

Good for your son.

[TexasBushwhacker]

36. When I was in high school in the mid 70s

I took an elective called "Home and Family Living". It was kind of "Life 101". We learned how to balance a checkbook, do a home budget, etc, but we also had a unit on human sexuality.

Our teacher invited a trans woman to talk to us. This was almost 50 years ago. She just talked about herself and her life, answered questions (including some pretty personal ones), even brought pre and post op pictures!

[David__77]

38. That is important activism.

The classrooms are where progressive young people can make a difference. Polite or not we need rabble rousers and lots of them.