As I’ve mentioned a number of times already, I’m a huge fan of Richard Dawkins. I think The God Delusion is a book most people simply owe it to themselves to read. And one of the most interesting points is how religion is often used as a defense for some truly abhorrent behavior.

Case in point, we have a teenager in Chicago using religion to defend the fact that he wants to wear an anti-gay T-shirt to school.

Heidi Zamecnik, 17, is asking the court to order her school and Indian Prairie District 204 to allow her to express her anti-gay beliefs on April 19, the day after the 11th annual “Day of Silence” is scheduled to protest harassment of gays in schools.

…

Heidi’s father, Carl Zamecnik, declined to comment Wednesday night on behalf of his family, and he referred calls to an attorney.

Because of her family’s “sincerely held religious beliefs” against homosexuality, “they wish to share their conviction that true happiness cannot be found through homosexual behavior,” the suit says.

Now, if she wanted to go back to her freedom of speech, it would never hold water. If she said she had the constitutional right to express this because of free speech it would be thrown out.

Now try and imagine if this were against any other minority. There’s defense in the Bible to speak out against Jews, people of another race, women, other religions, etc. If she tried to go to school with a shirt that said something to the effect of “NO JEWS” or “JEWS KILLED CHRIST” try and ponder the defense for that. And the story ends on a hilariously ironic note:

The suit says Heidi suffered unlawful discrimination, humiliation and punishment by school personnel merely because they didn’t agree with her viewpoint.

Wow, the poor girl got discriminated against merely for expressing her discrimination.