WASHINGTON \u2014 The music was angry and ragged, sounding something like a chainsaw gashing a concrete block \u2014 only with a beat that bounced the teens up and down.<\/p>\n\n
But this was not the usual mosh scene. This was a Rock For Life concert.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cIt seems too easy unwanted baby, it could just be thrown away,\u201d chanted Mike Middleton of a Wisconsin band called Hangnail. \u201cA life so helpless counted as useless, another victim of mankind. \u2026 Did you even have a name or could you\u2019ve been like me the same? I was wondering, do they think of you or try to keep you from their minds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Not far from the stage was a table lined with stacks of black sweatshirts and T-shirts that are guaranteed to stand out among the Tommy Hilfiger and Abercrombie & Fitch clones in school hallways. The slogans are printed in large white letters and are easy to read, even from a distance.<\/p>\n\n
Some people like that. Some people don\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cABORTION IS HOMICIDE,\u201d says one sweatshirt. \u201cABORTION IS MEAN,\u201d says another. On the back is a pledge that proclaims: \u201cYou will not silence my message. You will not mock my God. You will stop killing my generation.\u201d The Rock For Life logo is a cartoon image of an unborn child playing an electric guitar.<\/p>\n\n
The American Life League reported selling 15,000 of the shirts at rallies last summer and at least another 500 during concerts supporting the annual March For Life on Tuesday, the 29th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s Roe v. Wade decision.<\/p>\n\n
These shirts will be coming soon to a public school near you, if Rock For Life has its way.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cPeople will probably think that we\u2019re weird or something, but we\u2019re used to that,\u201d said 16-year-old Katie Hammond of Frederick (MD) High School, not far outside the Washington beltway. \u201cSometimes we end up in arguments at lunch about stuff like this. People keep saying, \u2018It\u2019s wrong to believe what you believe\u2019 and blah, blah, blah. Maybe it\u2019ll be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Then again, there\u2019s always a chance someone will freak out and call a counselor. Rock For Life has received a dozen or more complaints about students being sent home for wearing the \u201cABORTION IS HOMICIDE\u201d shirt. Few have dared to fight these bans. These are tense times on the free-speech front.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cI know some of the schools have a zero-tolerance policy on language about death, so people are saying that the word \u2018homicide\u2019 violates that,\u201d said the Rev. Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition. \u201cBut that just doesn\u2019t wash, since you have all kinds of kids walking the halls in T-shirts for rock groups like Slayer, Megadeth and who knows what all. There was even an anti-gun campaign a few years ago with the slogan, \u2018Stop the killing.\u2019 I didn\u2019t hear anything about schools banning those shirts.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cSo from my point of view, this isn\u2019t about the word \u2018homicide.\u2019 What this is about is the word \u2018abortion.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n\n
Then there is that dangerous word \u201cGod.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
In Malone, N.Y., a school attorney claimed the sweatshirt pledge proved that \u201cthe student\u2019s objective is to proselytize.\u201d But such a ban would appear to clash with 1999 Clinton White House guidelines that were backed by a broad coalition ranging from the National Association of Evangelicals to the American Civil Liberties Union. That letter said: \u201cSchools may not single out religious attire in general, or attire of a particular religion, for prohibition or regulation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Apparently, many Americas are tense and hypersensitive right now about anything that has to do with strong faith or claims of religious truth, said Erik Whittington of Rock For Life. Thus, some want to nip conflict in the bud, even if that means undercutting free speech.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cWe had our largest cluster of complaints about the sweatshirts right after Sept. 11 \u2014 just a few days or a week after that,\u201d he said, moments before one of the Capitol Hill concerts. \u201cThere has to be a connection. \u2026 I think the logic goes like this: pro-life equals right wing, Christian, fanatic, the enemy. Some people think we\u2019re the American Taliban.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON \u2014 The music was angry and ragged, sounding something like a chainsaw gashing a concrete block \u2014 only with a beat that bounced the teens up and down. But this was not the usual mosh scene. This was a Rock For Life concert. \u201cIt seems too easy unwanted baby, it could just be thrown […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[37,373,750],"class_list":["post-954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abortion","tag-free-speech","tag-rock-music"],"yoast_head":"\n