Teacher fired from Texas Christian school after drag show

08/02/2023

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A longtime Texas teacher who shared an image of herself with drag performers at a gay bar claims she was fired from her job because she was told she “wasn’t walking in a godly manner.”

In a July 24 Facebook post, Kristi Maris, a teacher at First Baptist Academy Baytown in Houston, shared an image of her and an unidentified colleague flanked by several men wearing makeup and dressed in women’s clothing at Hamburger Mary’s with a caption announcing her termination.

Maris wrote: “As of today I was fired from my Job of 20 years for attending a sing along show at Hamburger Mary’s. Before ever getting the news of my termination it had spread like wildfire in the church and school.

“They told me because I went to this show and posted a picture I wasn’t walking in a Godly manner, so that being said please remove yourself from my page if this offends you, if you think this is UnGodly, makes me a pedaphile (sp), or causes you to feel uncomfortable.”

According to a local ABC affiliate, Maris teaches physical education at First Baptist Academy and attended the drag show on July 13 with the unidentified colleague and her daughters.

In response to Maris’ firing, Hamburger Mary’s, a family of locally-owned eateries in Houston, Dallas, and several other U.S. cities, announced a benefit show for Maris and her colleague and to “help raise awareness that drag queens and the [LGBT] community are not bad people. We accept and love everyone!”

The restaurant also launched a GoFundMe for Maris, which has raised over $6,300 as of Friday.

Hamburger Mary’s social media pages have several announcements with men dressed in women’s clothing promoting events like “SaturGay Brunch” and “B— Do You Even Brunch?”

First Baptist Academy Baytown has a stated objective of “offering a solid Biblical foundation and high achieving academics” for its students.

Under the “Philosophy” section of the school’s website, the school says its “goal is to build a strong foundation in each student through promoting excellence in education and instilling Biblical ideology.”

The page also quotes Luke 6:48: “He is like a man who built a house and dug deep and laid the foundation on a rock; and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house and could not shake it, for it was founded upon a rock. ”

Neither the school nor the church responded to a request for comment as of Friday afternoon.

Last month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a bill that bans drag performances in the presence of children throughout the state.

Under Senate Bill 12, anyone younger than 18 is prohibited from attending “sexually oriented” events and businesses that host such events are subject to fines as large as $10,000 for each violation.