Hope for the future...

My wife and I were asked to dinner the other night by some friends and parents of a friend of our 8th grade daughter. They informed us that she was being bullied at school by a kid and his cronies for being an atheist. They would taunt her in the halls by yelling "Here comes the atheist!" and would scream down the halls that she worshiped the devil. Our daughter, true to form, didn't tell us about this and took it upon herself to ignore them. We found out from concerned Christian parents and friends.

They said that our daughter had been fully supported by her Christian friends who yelled back at the boys and deflected their ire. Evidently, many many friends were doing this for her.

I called the school the next day and spoke to the principal. I told her the situation and she was horrified. She said, "That has no place here and we WILL deal with this today."

Moments later I get a text that the ringleader had been called to the office and placed in in-school-suspension. His parents were contacted and they were having an intervention regarding religious bullying.

I live in the heart of the deep south. Let this sink in for a minute. There was massive support for our daughter and us at the child level, adult level, and school administration level.

Wow. Perhaps there is hope for the future!