Missouri Teen Fights for LGBT Rights

A lesbian teenager in a Kansas City suburb is leading a fight against discrimination wherever she finds it -- for instance, at a shop that refused to print T-shirts for her school's gay-straight alliance.

The Kansas City Star profiles Bailee Webb (pictured, foreground), 17, president of the GSA at Blue Springs South High School in Blue Springs, Mo. It reports that the GSA members recently agreed on a T-shirt design with the phrase "Why is it that as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?"

After the school's principal approved the design, Webb emailed an order for the shirts to Rod's Sporting Goods in Blue Springs. The owner, Rod Lindemann, emailed her back the next day, saying that because of his religious beliefs, he could not do the job. "I am a man who walks my faith," he told the Star. "God calls me to love all, but he doesn't call me to be comfortable with things that I don't see as God-pleasing."

Webb found another vendor to produce the T-shirts, and she contacted leaders of other clubs at her school and got them to agree to cease patronizing Lindemann's store. She emailed him, "I respect your decision, even if I do not agree with it, and I'm sorry that the Blue Springs South GSA and many other clubs here at South cannot and no longer will be doing business with you."

Webb came out to her mother two years ago and has received unconditional support. Now a senior, she is an honor student who has applied to Harvard University and hopes to become a nuclear or aerospace engineer. Read more about her here.