Teacher Opposed to Gay Marriage Could be Fired

[Azrael]

Trace Adkins is right. No one in the whole history of history has ever suffered the kind of systematic oppression brought down today on the heads of middle-class straight white American Christian males.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Trace Adkins is right. No one in the whole history of history has ever suffered the kind of systematic oppression brought down today on the heads of middle-class straight white American Christian males.

Here is the thing about that group: You stick your nose into politics, as it has done since the early 1980s, you better expect to get bloodied a little bit. They want dispensation from the same ferocity that greets every other interest group. They ain't getting it.

 

[RickStain]

"Refuses to endorse" is quite a bit different from "openly vilifies." He doesn't like it? Nobody's asking, he doesn't need to broadcast it to the world. And yes, that is what posting on Facebook is. I gather your students wouldn't know a thing about your opposition, which is as it should be. If a teacher feels the need to get confrontational about this, there are consequences.

So you are pretty much advocating one of two things here.

1) Teachers shouldn't be allowed to say anything about pretty much anything in their personal time.

2) Teachers with views deemed unacceptable should have lesser rights than teachers with acceptable personal views.

I find both stances pretty abhorrent.

 

[LongTimeListener]

"Refuses to endorse" is quite a bit different from "openly vilifies." He doesn't like it? Nobody's asking, he doesn't need to broadcast it to the world. And yes, that is what posting on Facebook is. I gather your students wouldn't know a thing about your opposition, which is as it should be. If a teacher feels the need to get confrontational about this, there are consequences.

So you are pretty much advocating one of two things here.

1) Teachers shouldn't be allowed to say anything about pretty much anything in their personal time.

2) Teachers with views deemed unacceptable should have lesser rights than teachers with acceptable personal views.

I find both stances pretty abhorrent.

I'm saying 2). You are acting like a high school is and always has been a bastion of unregulated speech where the marketplace of ideas decides everything. Not true. And this is not a political stance the teacher is taking, it is a stance of prejudice and should not be allowed in a public school.

 

[RickStain]

No, I'm aware the history and precedent is on the side of restricting freedom here. I just don't like it.

When a government institution enacts a policy that decides some personal views are unacceptable and some are acceptable, and the result is professional consequences, that is unacceptable to me.

 

[YGBFKM]

Replace "teachers" with "individuals" and 2) is at the heart of modern American liberalism.

 

[RickStain]

And this is not a political stance the teacher is taking, it is a stance of prejudice and should not be allowed in a public school.

The stance of prejudice wasn't taken inside a public school, so what's the problem?

 

[Dick Whitman]

And this is not a political stance the teacher is taking, it is a stance of prejudice and should not be allowed in a public school.

The stance of prejudice wasn't taken inside a public school, so what's the problem?

That it can cause a disruption within the school. I don't necessarily like that, either, but that's the law.

There's a case out there - can't remember if it was a Supreme Court or Circuit case, where a teacher wrote articles for the NAMBLA newsletter advocating man-boy sex. It only became a disruption because the school made it one - nobody knew about it otherwise. But ultimately, the Court upheld his firing.

Should a teacher who writes for the NAMBLA newsletter be fired? Or is he just exercising his Constitutional right to free speech?

 

[LongTimeListener]

And this is not a political stance the teacher is taking, it is a stance of prejudice and should not be allowed in a public school.

The stance of prejudice wasn't taken inside a public school, so what's the problem?

It was a public stance. Facebook is.

 

[RickStain]

And this is not a political stance the teacher is taking, it is a stance of prejudice and should not be allowed in a public school.

The stance of prejudice wasn't taken inside a public school, so what's the problem?

It was a public stance. Facebook is.

Agreed. But it wasn't done inside the school, it wasn't done with school resources, and it wasn't done using his status as a teacher to amplify the message.

So as far as I'm concerned, the school should stay out of it.

 

[YGBFKM]

The NAMBLA teacher supports gay stuff and is therefore a good person.

 

[Dick Whitman]

And this is not a political stance the teacher is taking, it is a stance of prejudice and should not be allowed in a public school.

The stance of prejudice wasn't taken inside a public school, so what's the problem?

It was a public stance. Facebook is.

Agreed. But it wasn't done inside the school, it wasn't done with school resources, and it wasn't done using his status as a teacher to amplify the message.

So as far as I'm concerned, the school should stay out of it.

This is why balancing tests are so forking dumb.

You're supposed to balance the speech rights against the disruption, right? How the heck do you do that? It's like asking what color is "S"?