americanlifeleague_2005_1748667.gifA 12-year-old student in Hutchinson, Minn., is suing his school after officials asked him not to wear controversial anti-choice T-shirts. He has gotten legal help from the Thomas More Law Center, a group that bills itself as “Christianity’s answer to the ACLU.”

The Minnesota school is in the midst of a showdown between free speech advocates who are right-wing Christians and school administrators who want disruption-free classrooms. Court systems nationwide have seen heightened caseloads in recent years as religious right groups fight for students to wear anti-gay and anti-abortion messaging under the mantra of religious freedom.

The student, known only as K.B. in the lawsuit, planned to wear an anti-abortion shirt every school day in the month of April, but school officials repeatedly asked him to turn the shirts inside out and to refrain from wearing them at school. The shirts were purchased from the American Life League, which calls itself a Roman Catholic pro-life group.

K.B.’s shirts read, “Abortion… growing, growing, gone,” “What part of abortion don’t you understand?” and “Never Known – Not Forgotten: 47,000,000 babies aborted 1973-2008.” Other shirts available from American Life League include “The Pill Kills,” “America’s Hidden Holocaust” and “Planned Parenthood Kills Babies” — certainly controversial and potentially classroom disruptive.

K.B.’s mother, Jeanne Ibbitson, is a single parent who describes herself as a devout Christian.

“He shouldn’t have lost his reputation as a good kid,” Ibbitson told the Pioneer Press. “He shouldn’t be known as the kid who is constantly going to the office. They look at him as defiant now. I applaud him. He is really shy. And it’s scary to stand up to people in authority, unless you’re a defiant kid, which he’s not. It was hard for him to get up every day and put the T-shirt on and go to school to try and carry on his mission for the month.”

The family is seeking “unspecified compensatory and punitive damages” for “irreparable damages” caused by school officials’ actions. The suit has been filed in U. S. District Court for the District of Minnesota.

The courts have set a precedent in cases involving Christian students wearing T-shirts that could potentially incite classroom disruption. Positive messaging is preferred. Last year, a suburban Chicago school won a court case when a student wore a T-shirt that read “Be Happy, Not Gay.” The student sued on the basis of free speech and religious expression but lost. The school said it would have allowed positive messages such as “Be Happy, Be Straight,” and the court agreed that positive speech wouldn’t construed as disruptive.