The following is an editorial, and does not necessarily reflect the views and beliefs of the Eaton Red Ink staff as a whole.

By Isaiah Cordova

The conservatism of our small town certainly hasn’t left us, as witnessed by an  incident in which a few students reported posters from the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) being ripped off walls and off lockers. Being in a rural town, EHS is bound to have a majority of people with conservative views, and one of those major conservative views is that homosexuality and same-sex marriage are wrong.

I’m not religious, nor am I a part of the LGBT community, but I believe that everyone deserves equal rights. And when people tear down posters of the GSA in the name of religion, they are becoming hypocrites because they are attacking these people, who are literally and what the Bible would consider neighbors.

The Bible enforces in Mark 12:31 the idea that everyone should be treated the same. It says to love God and to “‘love your neighbor as yourself.’ There are no commandments greater than these.”

The intentional damage of property, being the posters, is wrong. Especially so when the damage is done based on of a belief. The idea that there are any students doing this vandalism is terrible, but the fact that there are Christian students doing it makes them hypocrites.

The GSA deserves to be a group, it deserves to be able to gather in a place of comfort and safety, and it also deserves the same respect that the FCS (Fellowship of Christian Students) has within the student body. The “religion of kindness” is no longer such a religion when people begin to threaten other people’s safety.

Whether or not any members of the FCS is guilty of tearing down the flyers, I say this: If a person’s belief can allow them to form a group and find a place to gather in school, then why can’t someone else share that comfort of meeting other people that are like them? Why must people hold such reverence for their own belief, but not the belief of others?

America was built on the concept of freedom of speech and religion. When you ask for that right for yourself, you must ensure that right for others.

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See Related Article: Eaton begins Gay Straight Alliance Club