DUNKERTON, Iowa — School officials at Dunkerton High School were expecting to deliver a positive message about good choices when they invited the Christian rock bank Junkyard Prophet to perform at a student assembly, but instead were treated to a lecture condemning homosexuality and images of aborted fetuses.
Students and faculty said the assembly started well with music, and a message focusing on how some music can have a bad influence on kids. But after performing, the group reportedly made offensive remarks about gays and transgender people, and told the girls they “were going to have mud on their wedding dresses if they weren’t virgins,” reported the LaCrosse Tribune.
“They told these kids that anyone who was gay was going to die at the age of 42,” said Jennifer Littlefield, a parent upset with the band’s performance.
“It just blows me away that no one stopped this,” she said.
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The band is part of the “You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International” Christian youth ministry founded by Bradlee Dean.
According to a 2010 report by Andy Birkey of the Minnesota Independent, Dean — pastor of the “You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International” ministry — has advocated for imprisonment of gays and lesbians, and has said that gay men molest an average of 117 children “before they get caught,” and that Muslim nations that execute gays are more moral than American Christians.
Dean denounced the report and later claimed that Birkey “twisted” his words and that he “never and will never call for the execution of homosexuals.”
A representative for Dean said he “was quoting a study done on gay pedophile (pederasts) and was protecting the children from criminal activity.”
Dean also posted a statement on his website, affirming his stance on homosexuality.
Birkey and MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow are defendants in a lawsuit filed by Dean, alleging that reports by Birkey and Maddow “deliberately” deleted portions of a statement made by Dean “to make it appear that he was in agreement” with an extreme Muslim position.
Superintendent Jim Stanton said the group was invited to share “a very strong anti-violence, anti-drug, anti-alcohol” message, but many of their views didn’t conform to the district’s teaching of tolerance, and now acknowledges it was a mistake to invite them.
Stanton said the group apparently changed and misrepresented its total message going into Thursday’s appearance.