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Florida Teacher Jerry Buell’s Ongoing Contempt For Gay And Religious Rights

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The ongoing gay and religious human rights crisis in the Lake County, Florida public schools recently escalated as the maliciously anti-gay social studies teacher Jerry Buell told the Orlando Sentinel that he is passionate about his faith and that if students are uncomfortable with that, they need to get their schedules changed. It could not be plainer that, for example, a student member of Catholics for Equality would not be made to feel welcome in Buell’s classroom. Or, for that matter, a Jew, a Muslim, or an atheist.

READ: Student Of Anti-Gay Florida Teacher Jerry Buell Speaks Out – Exclusive!

Buell became well-known across America last month for posting this comment on Facebook:

“I’m watching the news, eating dinner, when the story about New York okaying same sex unions came on and I almost threw up.”

“If they want to call it a union, go ahead. But don’t insult a man and woman’s marriage by throwing it in the same cesspool as same-​sex whatever! God will not be mocked. When did this sin become acceptable???”

In an attempt to defend himself after news broke of his offensive Facebook anti-gay rant, Buell, a teacher at Mount Dora high school, on his personal website last month wrote, “I try to teach and lead my students as if Lake Co. Schools had hired Jesus Christ himself.” This after being criticized for writing on the school’s syllabus, “I am a man of God and I try to be like Jesus every day. I teach God’s truth, I make very few compromises.”

Buell’s open hostility towards religious minorities blatantly violates the Florida Department of Education’s Principles of Professional Conduct for the Education Profession. Those Principles state, among other things, that the individual educator shall not harass or discriminate against any student on the basis of religion, and that violation of any of the principles “shall subject the individual to revocation or suspension of the individual educator’s certificate, or the other penalties as provided by law.”

In the pages of the Orlando Sentinel, Buell issued his open warning to students of religious minorities after the Lake County Schools Board issued “directives” to him in the wake of his anti-gay-rights hate speech on Facebook. As the Board’s directives to Buell will not be public until ten days after they were issued, it appears possible that the directives instructed him to warn religious and other minorities, in the pages of the Sentinel, that they must be prepared to suffer — in silence — his violations of the Florida Dept. of Education’s Principles, or not take his classes at all. Who knows what those directives say, if Buell is still threatening minority students in public, and the Lake County Board does nothing to punish him?  The circumstances give an observer no faith that the Lake County Schools will uphold the Florida Department of Education’s Principles.

Furthermore, the Florida Department of Education itself is refusing to provide any oversight. Informed of Buell’s published threat against students from religious minorities, and his other apparent violations, the Department of Education told this reporter that it is a local school board matter. That makes an observer wonder what the point of the Principles might be in the first place. Are they optional?  For its part, the Atlanta Division of the United States Department of Education, in a preliminary response to the Buell scandal, said “all students have a right to an education free from the threat of harassment.”

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Trump’s Coalition Is ‘Kaput’ — Midterms Threaten to Be ‘Brutal’: Columnists

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April 16, 2026

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The coalition that united to put Donald Trump back in the White House in 2024 is “kaput,” and with a president polling even worse than at this point in his first term, the November midterms are threatening to be “brutal” for Republicans, argue Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Elaine Godfrey at The Atlantic.

“A shocking number of the president’s supporters have turned against him,” the columnists write.

“When Trump opens his mouth, three-quarters of what he says is stories, lies,” Tomas Montoya, a Trump voter, told The Atlantic outside a popular Hispanic grocery store in Casa Grande, Arizona.

“Montoya voted for President Trump in 2024, but now, well, frustrated doesn’t begin to cover how he’s feeling. The president is bragging about the economy, even though everyone Montoya knows is hurting; he promised to stop wars, but started one in Iran,” The Atlantic notes. “He’s planning to vote in the midterm elections this fall. But he may not choose a Republican.”

Some Trump voters, like Montoya, the columnists explain, sound “anxious, and a little regretful about how they voted two Novembers ago.”

They describe some of Trump’s “fanboys in the libertarian-leaning manosphere” as “baffled by his actions on the Epstein files, immigration, and now Iran.”

Religious conservatives “have been criticizing their once-unassailable leader after he posted a photo on social media of himself as Jesus and attacked the pope, calling the first American pontiff ‘WEAK on Crime.'”

Some battleground Republican operatives would prefer the president not campaign “too hard” for their candidates.

READ MORE: Conservative Christian Broadcaster Slams Franklin Graham’s ‘Embarrassing’ Defense of Trump

How bad are the midterms expected to be for the GOP?

“Almost every new poll is a red flag for Republicans,” they write. “Independents, young voters, and Latinos—groups that were crucial to Trump’s win in 2024—aren’t in the bag anymore. Even non-college-educated white Americans, once the president’s strongest group, have turned on him, according to a CNN polling average.”

One 61-year-old Democrat who opted to vote for Trump in 2024 hoping he would bring down high prices says she is poorer today than she was two years ago.

“High gas prices mean that she is staying home more often—skipping Bible studies at her church, volunteering less, and even missing exercise classes. Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran was her breaking point with the president. ‘I think that he just wants war,’ she said. ‘He’s made it plain that he’s adversarial with everybody.'”

Trump’s highly controversial AI post of himself “dressed in flowing robes, surrounded by a heavenly glow while healing a sick man … alienated the one group of Americans that has rarely left his side: Christian conservatives. The picture, declared the Daily Wire reporter Megan Basham, was ‘OUTRAGEOUS blasphemy.'”

Far-right pastor Joel Webbon, who, The Atlantic noted, opposes women being allowed to vote, said that Trump is “currently demon possessed.”

Anti-trans activist Riley Gaines, whom the president has called a “tremendous athlete,” wrote that “God shall not be mocked.”

Some fundraising “plummeted” in early March after Trump launched his Iran war.

“If this is a two-week stretch, not a huge deal,” a GOP consultant told The Atlantic. “If we’re still bombing Iran in November? I mean …”

READ MORE: ‘I’m All About the Gospel’ Trump Says After Refusing to Meet With Pope Leo

 

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‘I’m All About the Gospel’ Trump Says After Refusing to Meet With Pope Leo

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11 hours ago

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April 16, 2026

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Amid an escalating feud with President Donald Trump lashing out at the first American pope, Pope Leo XIV, and the pope promoting a pro-peace, anti-war message the president opposes, Trump is refusing to meet with the Vicar of Christ.

“I don’t think it’s necessary,” Trump declared on Thursday afternoon, despite new poll numbers that show his support among Catholics slipping after his attacks on the pontiff.

Earlier on Thursday, Pope Leo had posted to social media a message some thought was meant for the president.

“Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic, and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth,” he wrote.

Asked specifically about it, Trump did not answer directly, instead telling reporters that it’s “very important that the Pope understands, very, very important…Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.”

Trump also told reporters, “I’m all about the Gospel. I’m all about it as much as anybody can be!”

READ MORE: Conservative Christian Broadcaster Slams Franklin Graham’s ‘Embarrassing’ Defense of Trump

 

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Conservative Christian Broadcaster Slams Franklin Graham’s ‘Embarrassing’ Defense of Trump

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12 hours ago

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April 16, 2026

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Conservative Christian evangelist Franklin Graham is rushing to President Donald Trump’s aid, defending an image the president posted that appeared to depict him as Jesus Christ, “bathed in divine light and clad in religious robes,” as The New York Times described, and one of the president with Jesus Christ. One conservative Christian broadcaster isn’t buying Graham’s defense.

“I do not believe President Trump would knowingly depict himself as Jesus Christ—that would certainly be inappropriate,” Graham wrote on social media on Thursday. “I’m thankful the President has made it very clear that this was not at all what he thought the AI-generated image was representing—he thought it was a doctor helping someone, and when he learned of the concerns, he immediately removed the post.”

“I think this is a lot to do about nothing,” Graham continued, noting that there were no halos, crosses, or angels in the illustration. “There is so much ill-intended speculation. I think his enemies are always foaming at the mouth at any possible opportunity to make him look bad.”

He went on to defend an image Trump also posted that appeared to show him being embraced by Christ.

READ MORE: Trump Axes Catholic Charities Funding for Migrant Kids Amid Pope Feud: Report

“I like the fact that this is a picture of Jesus whispering in his ear, or at least His hand on his shoulder, guiding him,” Graham declared. “We all need that—we all need to be listening to Jesus…Remember, President Trump didn’t draw this, he didn’t create it, he reposted it on his social media because he thought it was nice—I would have to agree.”

Graham called Trump the “most pro-Christian, pro-life president in my lifetime,” and suggested the Pope should “thank the President for his efforts to protect religious liberty for Catholics and people of all faiths.”

Erick Erickson, a conservative evangelical talk radio host and political commentator once described as the “most powerful conservative in America,” blasted Graham’s remarks.

“This is embarrassing,” he wrote in response to Graham’s post.

He was not alone in his condemnation.

“So laughable it’s sad. Sycophancy comes to the Graham name. Deeply unserious,” declared Professor Matthew Boedy, who focuses on the rhetoric of religion.

Republican former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former Trump ally, also blasted Graham.

“Franklin Graham making excuses for Trump posting himself as Jesus is one of the worst things I’ve seen,” she wrote. “Trump posted his blasphemous picture with Satan added above him, the original picture had a soldier. If you search ‘pictures of Jesus’ most of them show Jesus in white with a red robe over his shoulders. Franklin Graham of all people, who is frequently at the WH and with Trump, should be leading Trump to be a Christian, NOT telling other Christians that Trump did nothing wrong when he committed blasphemy.”

READ MORE: Why Trump Might Want to Try to ‘Usher’ Alito Into Retirement: CNN Analysis

 

Image via Reuters 

 

 

 

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