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Conservative Group Threatens Schools Barring Anti-Gay Speaker
365gay.com — A socially conservative legal organization is warning schools which observe The National Day of Silence that they face legal action if they bar speakers opposed to homosexuality.
BunnieLebowski- 51 diggs
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- newbee70, on 10/12/2007, -16/+5Sorry but it's their right to protest against you. And I applaud them for it. What gives you more rights than any other group "NADA".
- chrisjj, on 10/12/2007, -8/+16Simple: because it fosters hate and discrimination against a minority group in our society.
- The_Wallbanger, on 10/12/2007, -7/+12School and religion don't mix. I've yet to hear a compelling anti-gay viewpoint that doesn't try to use the Bible as it's main pillar of support.
- jobenly, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6Doesn't it bother people that article calls the former pastor a "former homosexual," scare quotes included? Is it 100% impossible that this particular woman used to be gay and now isn't? Shouldn't a tolerant person at least give her the benefit of the doubt?
- mikelieman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4When does "Protest" devolve into "Mafioso-style" ( and RICO prosecutable! ) intimidation?
- ncairns, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3@tyrannysucks
As much as bigots love to wear that circular logic like a suit of armor, refusing to tolerate intolerance is not itself intolerance. Homosexuality is natural, whether your backwards, warped, tiny little mind possesses the gray cells requisite that realization or not. Penguins engage in homosexual behavior. So do orangutans, dolphins, bats, humming birds, deer, and many, many other species. Your frail attempt to cast homosexuality as a perversion tantamount to bestiality or necrophilia is frankly tired, and obviously born of a tragic upbringing which instilled in you your parent's prejudices - a kind of devolution which time and society will eventually weed out like the virus it is, relegating you and those who share your stunted conception of morality to the outermost fringes of relevance until you finally fade away altogether.
Or is evolution a lie as well? - gmason08, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Few are aware that publicly funded, compulsory "education" was instituted for the express purpose of indoctrinating the masses and for making them compliant, unquestioning servants of the state. In fact, the goal of the designers of the Prussian system was to make it impossible for the victims of their education system to even be capable of thoughts other than full concurrence with whatever the King decreed. More disturbing, our own (U.S. as is most of Europe) publicly funded, compulsory "education" system has its origins and design based on the Prussian system w/ similar goals, create good little corporate trolls/taxpayers/consumers/etc. Current obvious evidence of the historical fact and results of this "educational model" is easily available for personal empirical study, i.e. the popular interest in matters such as Anna Nicole Smith or what you will find on any given day dominating the "Google Video Top 100" both for the U.S. and for all countries, the later demonstrates support for Freud's Theory and is exacerbated by what I have labeled as the LCD* phenomenon.
Basic Links to support my above assertion re: history/purpose of compulsory public education below; I encourage anyone interested in this important topic to conduct their own fact checking, however, be cautious/mindful of the institutional concerns of the institution effect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system
http://www.afhe.org/resources/articles/gatto_teacher_of_year_speech_1990.pdf
*Lowest Common Denominator - ncairns, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3@gmason08
What complete and utter drivel.
Compulsory education exists because we need a general public which isn't *completely* stupid. Get rid of public schools for a generation as see how the nation fares. Anyone who thinks public schools are inessential to a modern society is stupid or naive or both. - flamingmb, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3@ newbee70 and tyrannysucks
so you would allow time for a skin head or KKK member to also speak? Would they not also get "fair time" under your rules? they would need to defend themselves against the other people who says not to discriminate. Right?
get off your religious high horse and learn some morals. - Zippo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3It's pretty sad that this kind of blatant discrimination and hate is not only unopposed, but encouraged by some... Holding an anti-gay speech to a public audience would be considered a hate crime in Canada. And in a school of all places... I guess they figure they have to instill the hatred in them while they're young and impressionable.
- CognitiveRes, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Well apparently Canada already gave up on freedom. Good for them. Why even bother with freedom if people might use it to disagree with you? Are our friends to the north so afraid that the anti-gay movement is right that they have to make sure no one hears them?
- Aeaus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2How dare they allow anything promoting homosexuality be driven upon the sensitive corruptible ears of our youth. If they allow this it is only a short while before those crazed homosexuals will start mandating homosexual relations among... Sorry, my brain just couldn't handle the bigotry, even if I tried to come up with something sarcastic.
Screw Bigots. - PatNolan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Freedom of speech is especially important for those with whom you disagree. While I dislike the KKK and skinheads, I would fight for their right to speak -- just as I would speak against them and fight for the right of people to speak out against them.
Freedom is such a fragile thing. Once you start silencing people's speech because you don't like what they have to say, you forever break that freedom. Because your right to say what you like is only as strong as the brute force you us to silence people.
We don't want to go there. Step up and speak out against them. But banning speech is wrong. Just wrong. - ncairns, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0@patnolan
Yeah, not quite. In theory your thinking is sound, but hate speech generally falls under incitement, which courts always rule is not protected by the First Amendment, and which anyone with a brain would not fight for.
- leatherscot, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11What legal action could they possibly face?? What law is against this? Would they let the KKK present to the kids on MLK Day?
- ncairns, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2The First Amendment has never shielded hate speech.
Your kind of diseased misunderstanding of the Constitution persists because people like you make every attempt to break the public school system. - CognitiveRes, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4The concept of hate speech is little more than thought crime.
Good thing you weren't using your freedom anyway. - ncairns, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0@tyrannysucks
The fact that you fail to recognize legal precedent, as you no doubt failed in so many other areas, does not in fact negate that legal precedent. Here in the civilized world, law reigns over the backwoods ***** you invent to justify your prejudice and stupidity.
Go whine about 'the evil govunment' legislating your bigotries and hatreds somewhere else - frankly I don't give a *****.
- ncairns, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2The First Amendment has never shielded hate speech.
- heypastorbob, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3So, what's the problem?
- Enchantrem, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3The problem with schools and the first amendment is that Everyone (and their brothers) will try to use the latter to teach (or preach) in the former. Democratically elected community school boards should be the only people deciding what is taught in a school, and theirs should be the final word. This includes guest speakers, student organizations, and even (GASP) whether or not to teach Intelligent Design.
- geoboy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1This whole event is new to me and sounds a bit complicated.
So the school is forcing the students to have a "Day of Silence" to reflect on homophobia? Or is this some completely voluntary thing a few students are doing? I don't get it. I am not the greatest person when it comes to reading comprehension (thank you public schools), but this article sounds so vague and void of useful information to me that I'm having an impossible time of comprehending what the ***** is going on.- kurttrail, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_Silence
Let the haters speak. Nothing promotes tolerance more than letting intolerance speak. - geoboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4After some research I think I understand the situation better.
The "Day of Silence" thing is a completely student driven grass roots effort. Not speaking while in school is a form of civil disobedience, however, so students have to get the school's permission to participate (I'm not sure how accurate that statement is, but that's how I understood it). Some Christian conservatives saw this and didn't like it, and so they wanted to counter it with a "Day of Truth". This "Day of Truth", however, entails people SPEAKING out against homosexuality.
The two protests have completely different approaches. One is passive, the other is completely aggressive. The "Day of Truth" comes directly after the "Day of Silence" for ***** sake. What a kick in the crotch that is.
I don't know how to argue this. The whole thing is damn messy. I don't think public school should be a place for all kinds of demonstrations. The primary function of school is basic learning. I can only see demonstrations like these interrupting things. As much as I love free speech, public school isn't the greatest place for it... so much immaturity gets in the way of what's really important. But education sucks so bad these days who can blame people for spicing things up. - geoboy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I just had an interesting idea. Let's flip this thing 180 degrees in a similar but completely hypothetical situation to get better perspective.
A Christian conservative group starts a grass roots Pro-life demonstration effort. On one day each year, demonstrators choose to go through the day completely in silence. They duct tape their mouthes shut and write "LIFE" across the tape with a sharpie. Many students across the country demonstrate in this manner. And some Liberals don't like it one bit. So in reaction they ask for a pro-life advocate to be able to speak that same day (or the day immediately after) of the protest. The school says no to the pro-life speaker, because she is advocating death.
Ooooh, I like flipping this on its head. :)
Can you guys honestly say you'd react the same way in both situations? Come on, be honest now. Maybe you'll realize why public school isn't a good place for controversial demonstrations... - geoboy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2ooops, i made a critical mistake. I meant for the speaker to be "PRO CHOICE" not "pro life". And I made that mistake TWICE! Damnit. Now my intelligent comment sounds completely stupid.
"The school says no to the pro-life speaker, because she is advocating death."
Haha, dammit. I'm an idiot. - CognitiveRes, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@geoboy
That's a great way to put it. After reading your post, and mentally inserting your edits I think a reasonable person almost has to conclude that the school should allow neither.
- kurttrail, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_Silence
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