November 29th, 2012 
Anthony Galasso 
Recently, a South Lyon, Michigan teacher was suspended without pay for allowing a student to play a Macklemore & Ryan Lewis song entitled “Same Love”, which promotes equality and acceptance for homosexuals.
Macklemore has released a statement about the incident on his website. Read the statement below, and for those who are still trying to catch up, a more lengthy editorial on the matter by Under The Gun’s very own James Shotwell can be read here.
I believe that Ms. Johnson getting suspended is completely out of line and unjust. However, I think it’s important for moments like these to be exposed and for us to pay attention and respond. This level of intolerance and fear is still very active in America, but at times is not completely visible. This incident is just one of tens of thousands that have happened across the country where schools have exposed a latent homophobia, preventing safe space for all young people to feel confident in being themselves. It’s clear that Ms. Johnson felt bullying and “gay bashing” were issues that needed to be addressed, and by doing so, was punished.
I wrote the song “Same Love,” not with the expectation that it would cure homophobia and lead to marriage equality across the US (although that’d be awesome). It was written with the hope that it would facilitate dialogue and through those conversations understanding and empathy would emerge. This incident demonstrates how too often we are quick to silence conversations that must be had. Even if people disagree, there is far more potential for progress when people are vocal and honestly expressing their thoughts about gay rights. When we are silent and avoid the issue, fear and hatred have a far greater life span.
It’s discouraging that a song about love and civil rights has led to a teacher getting suspended from her job. But that’s where we are at. For those of us who get a pit in our stomach when reading a story like this, it just makes it abundantly clear there is far more work to be done.
– Macklemore
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Something this sad is almost funny if you think about it. Just imagine if now, you read in a textbook a story from 35 years ago about a lets say hypothetically, a white teacher allowing a black student to learn within his/her white class, and that got him/her suspended or fired. Most people in today’s day and age would read that and think to themselves “Wow how could somebody rob someone of basic human equalities because of their skin color”. This story and others like it will hopefully make a textbook one day and people can look at these incidents and think “Wow how could somebody hate somebody so much just cause of their sexuality”. People sometimes don’t realize this truly is the civil rights movement of our generation.
It wasn’t the content as to why the suspension. If teachers show video in class it needs to be approved and pertain to the lesson plan. That was not done, and that is the reason of suspension. A student gave her the video in class to play. That’s all.
If you watch the news report, it says that only the audio was played, not the video… So no, that’s not all.
I live in the district and this back pedaling of now saying it was due to procedure not being followed is baloney; this is totally them trying to “cover their a$$”. Every day kids in our schools bring things to share with their classes and there are never forms and approval as to curiculum adherence. The double standard is appalling.
The teacher was only reported because the student “disagreed with the message the song promotes”.
Just like the reasoning behind being anti-gay marriage is “to protect tax and insurance fraud” The excuse that it wasn’t “pre approved” is a way to wrongfully legitimize their closed minded decision.
It was NOT video. It was AUDIO.
These were 8th graders, and in this district, sex ed is taught in 5th grade. I am more than sure most of these children had heard this song before it was played in the classroom. ONE student was ‘offended’; ONE student complained. It would be a whole different situation if many more pupils would have went to the office.
I attended South Lyon my ENTIRE SCHOOL LIFE.Now I feel ASHAMED for it. The “Mission Statement” of South Lyon Community Schools clearly states that they DO NOT discriminate against (blah blah blah) .. They have now PROVED themselves to be flat-out LIARS. I’m so happy she IS getting her pay they were going to hold, AND an apology from the Superintendent. Sorry? In SO MANY WAYS.