Local father says his daughter is being pressured to walk out on Wednesday

He’s a Western Washington father. His daughter attends a high school where she is in a leadership position. He wants to remain anonymous to spare his kid from further ridicule over a contentious gun control issue.

“(Other students) are telling her, ‘I can’t believe that you won’t walk out’ or that ‘you are making this political,’” he told the Dori Monson Show. “She’s like, ‘I’m not the one who is making this political’ … if you are saying this is to honor those students who have fallen, let’s not have it on a day that’s defined around the parameters of a political movement group. That makes it political.”

Students across America will walk out of class on March 14 — the one month anniversary of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. It is a separate demonstration than the Florida students have planned on March 24 — March for Our Lives.

This march is organized through the Women’s March website. The website calls for students and faculty to walk out of class for 17 minutes in honor of the 17 lives lost in the Parkland shooting.

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The girl’s father says his daughter is being pressured to take part. His daughter is a hunter and shoots for target practice.

“The thing that pushed me over the edge is that when my child is in a classroom, in a leadership position, and is being told by teachers that, ‘You really need to take ownership and lead this protest; this is your civil rights moment and you need to be actively engaged’ … I don’t think that’s right,” he said.

“’Coerce’ is a tough word,” he added. “They are great teachers. I think they honestly think they are doing the right thing. They were using their influence … so many of these kids look up to them. When they are told, ‘Hey, you really need to jump in here and lead; This is your moment,’ they feel passionate about it. Which is fine, they can do that. But their job is to teach kids how to think, not what to think.”

The father feels that the march is hijacked by a left-leaning political perspective. He says that Conservative viewpoints would not be entertained by schools.

“It immediately jumped to mind that if you are a Conservative leader and you take objection to the money being funneled from the government to Planned Parenthood and you want to plan an equivalent protest for all the lives you feel that have been lost through that … that would be laughed out of the classroom,” the father said.

“You have a right to protest, absolutely,” he said. “But don’t be telling my child, my under 18 child, that you should be protesting this, this, and this.”

Click here to read the full story on mynorthwest.com.

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