Student Asked to Write Anti-Gay Marriage Paper Hands in 127-Page Defense Instead

When given a lame homework assignment from an unpopular teacher, most high school students would probably be content to just power through. But one Missouri teen responded to an assignment by his Catholic school teacher to essentially affirm the church’s position on same-sex marriage with a staggering 127 page essay arguing that, as he put it, “Gay Marriage is Fabulous.”

The student—who posted his essay on Reddit under the username “averagesmurf”—explained that:

“The assignment is to write a “Summa Theologica” style paper where you present a “moral dilemma”, which is where you give the objections to church teaching and then the replies from the church. The exact words my teacher said in class were that you have to provide the church teaching to “show and prove that the church’s position is right.”

In a comment on his original post, the student, who said he is a junior at a “Catholic high school in rural Missouri,” insisted that the paper is is “100% real.” He subsequently offered a GIF of him counting out all 127 pages as proof. The paper contains extensive footnotes and citations to back up his argument.

Claiming that he’d been working on the paper since January, the student offered his favorite paragraph rebutting the church’s stance on homosexuality and same-sex marriage:

God created you, and he made no mistakes, God created me bisexual, and he made no mistakes, and he creates some people gay, and makes no mistakes: ‘For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected’ (1 Tim. 4.4-5). Marriage is not between man and woman, marriage is between love and love. Love is not wrong, love is not a mistake, love is not an abomination, love is just love.

According to the student, he received applause after arguing in favor of same-sex marriage during the classroom discussion that inspired his paper.

“It really isn’t a cry for attention,” he insisted, in response to another redditor’s criticism of the essay. “All i wanted to do was say to kids, who feel crummy about themselves because some jackass tells them it’s wrong to be themselves, that they’re loved and they don’t have to hate who they are.”