A Kansas high school teacher is calling it quits. Michael Hill says for months he’s been the target of harassing and threatening anti-gay letters that have forced him to leave his job and move out of state, The Topeka Capital-Journal reports.
“Queers will burn and so will you. Don’t think my friends and I aint still after you. We don’t want fags in our school,” one letter, which Hill posted to Facebook, reads.
“I’m just going to take matters into my own hands,” reads another, adding, “fags are not welcome in our schools.”
“I know where you live. I know a lot about your schedule. You need to watch your back cause I aint alone.”
“Homosexuals should not be teaching our kids, in fact I don’t believe they should be teaching our kids at all they are perverts and predators,” reads yet another. “The religious views of my family do not support this lifestyle…You should not be allowed to push some gay agenda on our kids.”
Hill is a visual arts teacher.
The letters were all sent via U.S. mail, meaning federal authorities could be called in. They were all signed, “A Concerned Patron.” Most include references to religion.
Hill, who has lived in Kansas his entire life, revealed he is gay on National Coming Out Day last October.
“His car tire was punctured with a screwdriver. He found ‘faggot’ written in the dust on his car,” the newspaper reports. “Hill said he reported the incidents to police, who couldn’t identify the culprit. He was too afraid to leave his apartment at night and suffered from severe mental stress.”
It became so bad Hill opted to take an unpaid leave, but after seven weeks the administration told him to come back or quit.
“It was very frustrating,” Hill told The Capital-Journal, “that my option was to pack up and move.”
Equality Kansas executive director Tom Witt says it’s “absolutely horrifying that professionals in Kansas are still being harassed and threatened, and run out of their jobs and run out of town, because of their sexual orientation.”
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