Christian parent rails against West Virginia school for showing 'pro-gay' video during class

A Christian parent has voiced his outrage at a middle school in West Virginia over an LGBT-themed suicide prevention music video that was shown to the students during class.

Rich Penkoski, the father of a 13-year-old student at Mountain Ridge Middle School in Gerrardstown, West Virginia, complained to the school's principal on Thursday that his daughter told him that the music video, which features two male high school students in bed together and a sex toy, had been shown in class on Tuesday.

The video that was shown to students was hip-hop artist Logic's 2017 song "1-800-273-8255," which follows a gay African-American student who is struggling to gain society's acceptance of his sexual orientation.

In an interview with The Christian Post on Thursday, Penkoski said that the video shown by his daughter's homeroom teacher, Jackie Coffin, was not the suicide prevention video that was approved by the school.

Penkoski's daughter claimed that Coffin instructed the students not to tell their parents that she had shown the music video during class.

The parent said that the teacher had admitted to showing the video and that the students wanted her to show it during class, but she denied telling the students not to inform their parents about it.

On Thursday afternoon, the school issued a statement saying it will take steps to prevent a similar incident from happening again.

"Mountain Ridge Middle School administration approved a suicide prevention video that was shown in homeroom earlier this week. A second video was brought to the attention of the teacher by her students, and without negative intent, the video was shown. The second video contained unapproved content that some may find offensive," the statement read.

"Mountain Ridge Middle School is committed to its students and their families and thanks Mr. Penkoski for bringing this to our attention. School administration is evaluating this incident and taking steps to prevent a similar occurrence in the future," it continued.

Penkoski, who is one of the leaders of the "Warriors for Christ" online ministry and Facebook page, said he believes that he and other parents should have been given the opportunity to opt-out of having their children watch the video.

Earlier this summer, the Warriors for Christ Facebook page drew backlash after the administrators announced that anyone who posted an LGBT rainbow flag emoji to the page would be banned.

Penkoski said that he had to change his home address and phone number because he had received numerous threats, as well as spam texts and emails about gay dating websites, car insurance companies, car dealerships and other commercial advertisements.

He and the other administrators at Warriors for Christ had recently launched SocialCross.org, a new Christian social media alternative to Facebook. Almost 10,000 users have enlisted to join the new platform so far.