From Hot Air:
Florida teacher suspended for Facebook entry opposing NY gay-marriage law
"Do teachers in public-school systems have a 'special ethics' code that prevents them from publicly speaking on policy issues? Lake County Schools in Florida suspended Jerry Buell, a high-school teacher with a reportedly impeccable record for 22 years, for posting his opposition to New York’s new gay-marriage law, and will start termination proceedings against him. The case will test First Amendment rights and encroaching political correctness:
'Jerry Buell, a veteran American history teacher at Mount Dora High School, was removed from his teaching duties as school officials in Lake County investigate allegations that what he posted was biased towards homosexuals.
“We took the allegations seriously,” said Chris Patton, a communication officer with Lake County Schools. “All teachers are bound by a code of special ethics (and) this is a code ethics violation investigation.”
Patton said the school system received a complaint on Tuesday about something Buell had written last July when New York legalized same sex unions. On Wednesday, he was temporarily suspended from the classroom and reassigned.'
So what did Buell write?
'The first was posted on July 25 at 5:43 p.m. as he was eating dinner and watching the evening news.
“I’m watching the news, eating dinner when the story about New York okaying same-sex unions came on and I almost threw up,” he wrote. “And now they showed two guys kissing after their announcement. If they want to call it a union, go ahead. But don’t insult a man and woman’s marriage by throwing it in the same cesspool of whatever. God will not be mocked. When did this sin become acceptable?”
Three minutes later, Buell posted another comment:
“By the way, if one doesn’t like the most recently posted opinion based on biblical principles and God’s laws, then go ahead and unfriend me. I’ll miss you like I miss my kidney stone from 1994. And I will never accept it because God will never accept it. Romans chapter one.”'
The school district suspended Buell, who had been the school’s Teacher of the Year in 2010-11, because they are concerned that gay students might be 'frightened or intimidated' in his class. That’s a pretty thin rationale for punishing someone over what appears to be more or less mainstream opposition to the gay-marriage law. Even saying the above in a classroom would be a thin rationale for disciplinary action, unless school districts will be taking action against all teachers who talk politics in the classroom, and a Facebook posting is not a classroom speech.
If school districts are worried about hate speech outside the classroom, wouldn’t we be demanding that these Wisconsin teachers get fired?
Wonder how many of these were talking about the Wisconsin PEU reform in their classrooms? A few of them brought their students out to protest, as I recall. Should they be suspended and fired, too? Isn’t this 'intimidating and frightening' to conservative-minded students in Wisconsin?
Teachers are American citizens with same rights as every other American citizen. They get to have opinions and express them publicly. The school can and should control classroom conduct, and should butt out of other speech entirely. And here’s a lesson about free speech and the Constitution that Lake County Schools apparently hasn’t grasped: there is no freedom from offense built into the First Amendment. We don’t curtail speech on the off chance it might hurt someone’s feelings. If we did, we wouldn’t have any free political speech at all. And I would make the same argument in support of a teacher suspended from a public school for offering Facebook support for New York’s gay-marriage bill.
Update: Some clumsy wording in the opening paragraph made it seem like Buell was 22 years old. He’s been a teacher for 22 years. I’ve rewritten that passage."
UPDATE: Florida teacher's job reinstated.
4 comments:
These selfish, leftist fools are all Godless heaths. What if a homo teacher talked about their lifestyle in the classroom or on facebook and it offended the straight students, which probably account for 99.99999% of all students. Bet they would get rewarded. If we don't get the left out of school control, our children will continue to be indoctrinated by fools like diogenes.
speaking of diogenes, something must have happened to that fool.
do you think that anti-Semite, anti-American might have been reborn to the errors of his ways or do you think maybe that a leftist would actual go against the party line for a dose of reality that obama really does stink?
To Hotair (the author of this article) and especially to JD (who left a comment):
1) Comments left by this teacher were not teachings from God." Did we not read exactly the same comments this man left. They were berating, insulting, judgmental, and discriminatory. Last time I checked, the words "okaying same-sex unions came on and I almost threw up” were not in the Bible. When read in sequential order, it’s obvious the man realized he was sounding “hateful” and tried to defend it by throwing “God” in there as his defense. This was obviously PERSONAL OPINON, not “the word of God”. Just because he chose to drop the “G” word a few times doesn’t automatically exempt his comments from the “hate” category.
2) If his students are “friends” on his Facebook page, then he should be punished. He deliberately exposed his students to his own bigotry and hateful opinion. WHICH IS ILLEGAL. JD, you used the perfect example. If a gay teacher discussed his personal sexual experiences with his class, he WOULD MOST DEFINITELY BE FIRED… or worse. Much like ANY OTHER teacher would AND SHOULD be reprimanded for the SAME THING, whether they are straight or gay.
You can use God all you want to defend your discriminatory comments. But the bottom line is, IT’S ILLEGAL to expose my child to your personal discriminatory opinions.
Do you REALLY, REALLY think that left wing teachers(most teachers are by the way) would be fired for pushing their opinion on students? What about the nuts in Wisconsin who actually had students out of school protesting on national TV? Wonder how many of them were fired? In your own words,THAT IS ILLEGAL!! What about the gay bert and ernie show put for students in DC? What about students singing songs about obama, led by union thug teachers? What about all the "climate change" (formerly called global warming until the earth actually began to cool down, so they changed the name so that any "change" in climate can be blamed on the evil CO2, which we all exhale so we should all kill ourselves to "save the planet") indoctrination? These people attack anyone they don't agree with and openly advocate their own sick opinions and lifestyles for all to see. My child goes to private school for good reason. And you sound like a liberal to me, so bite me.
Post a Comment