Christian school receives hate mail after refusing rainbow drawing

The disputed picture shows the Norwegian king Harald with a rainbow in the background. Furthermore, it contains a quote from the king: "Norwegians are girls who like girls, boys who like boys, and girls and boys who like each other." Altogether a message Stord Christian School disagreed with. Therefore, they "politely declined" to hang the poster in a visible place, school board chairman Tomas Moltu says to Dagen. The Christian School is the only school that refused the poster.

The decision of the school led to a storm of critique. The school even received a letter that told the board to burn in hell. According to Moltu, there have been a surprising number of reactions from people who are critical of the decision and from those who stand behind it. "Yet, there has been strong pressure to hang up something that others think we should hang up, but we have chosen to say no to."

“School should be in charge”

The principal of the school, Ole Henry Halleraker, argues that the school should be in charge of what it wants to hang up on its premises. He says to Vart Land that the rejection was a choice of principle, and that nobody outside of the school should decide what to hang up in and around the school building.

The head of the Education Association in Stort, Jæger Koppang, explains that the idea behind the gift is to show that the schools are for everyone after the shooting in Oslo on June 25. He disagrees that the picture is controversial. "It is an excellent cause for our local community, which has received the drawing incredibly well."