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Anti-LGBT Posters Divide Students At North Carolina School

Posters equating supporting LGBT rights to supporting sin have divided a North Carolina high school.

The posters at Eastern Alamance High School in Mebane referenced the Biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah, saying, “this is the price for sin.”

An openly gay sophomore, Jeremy Clevenger, told the Times News of Burlingon he saw a photo of the posters on social media, and took his concerns to an assistant principal. Clevenger says he was told the posters were "freedom of speech."

But Alamance-Burlington School Systems spokeswoman Jenny Faulkner says the posters were taken down last weekend because no one sought permission to post them. She says permission would not have been granted because of the content.

Clevenger said the posters were still there Tuesday morning and were torn down by students, not administrators.

The posters drew praise from some students on social media.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

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