Students conduct mock 'gay marriages'

Students at a California high school conducted mock same-sex "wedding" ceremonies at lunchtime on campus, prompting protests from angry parents.

The school's Gay-Straight Alliance promoted the event at Silverado High School in the high-desert town of Victorville Feb. 11 to mark National Freedom to Marry Day.

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Six female couples and three male couples took part in the ceremonies at the school's outdoor central gathering area.

About 40 parents, community members and students showed up in chilly, rainy weather to protest the event, the Los Angeles Times reported.

One protester, Therese Shore, said her son Andrew Stading, a Silverado senior, was reprimanded by school officials the day of the event for wearing a custom-made protest T-shirt bearing slogans such as "Gay is not the way" and an obscene slur about homosexuals, according to the Times.

"I don't want them shoving homosexuality down my child's throat," Shore said.

One student's father, objecting to a taxpayer-supported school holding such an event, held up a sign reading "I don't."

"I think the school and the district made a terrible, terrible judgment," he told the Times.

The district issued a statement, calling the ceremonies "a lawful exercise of the right of free speech guaranteed to public school students under state and federal law."

Some protesters objected to school rules barring religious demonstrations on campus.

"I'm Christian. I'm not allowed to bring my Bible, preaching to people," said sophomore Christina Wilson, 15.

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Wilson and others carried signs with such slogans as "God objects."