Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Tolerance Police put on temporary suspension in KY free-speech case

The forces of intolerance have lost an important battle. The people who want to impose their values on everyone else and suppress the expression of unpopular opinions got waxed in an important legal decision Friday.

That's right. For years we have been warned about the groups that want to take this country over and force everyone to bow to their political agenda. We have been told about these groups: the right wing extremists who want to establish a theocracy and stamp out all dissent from their ideology.

Now they have been swatted down by a federal court. The radical religious right won't easily recover from this one. The federal appeals court ruling...

...Wait. Time out. Let me read this again...

No. This can't be right. The ruling says that the people being intolerant and imposing their opinions on other people may be precisely the ones who are always lecturing the rest of us about being intolerant and imposing our opinions on other people! As it turns out, the ruling isn't a blow against the forces of the right, who we have been assured for years are the real danger to freedom of thought and expression, but political forces on the left, who are always spouting off about Tolerance and Diversity.

How can this be?

The 2-1 ruling by the U. S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court's ruling that struck down Timothy Morrison's petition for damages against Boyd County School district's "written policy prohibiting students from making stigmatizing or insulting comments regarding another student’s sexual orientation" during the 2004-2005 school year. The suit was originally brought against the school by Morrison, who argued that the policy would result in a "chill" on the free speech of students who thought that homosexuality was wrong, and asked for damages.

The ruling did not have directly to do with the issue of the "diversity training" itself. That issue had already been settled by the school district itself, when it tacitly admitted the inappropriateness of it's policy mandating students undergo pro-homosexuality training at the school. Students can not opt out of the mini-reeducation classes to correct the thought crime of having traditional views about sexuality.

But the Appeals Court ruled that the lower court was wrong in denying Morrison damages. This case was so blatant that even the ACLU has been on Morrison's side.

Go figure.

So for now, at least, students in Boyd County have some protection against the Tolerance Police, who are intent upon ensuring that unflattering thoughts about homosexuality do not get expressed, particularly in an educational context where students might infer from the fact that the First Amendment's freedom of expression protections are supposed to apply to everyone that they should therefore apply to people who disagree with the political and cultural agenda of gay rights groups.

At least there are a few judges who comprehend that "everyone" includes everybody.

But it won't stop the attempts by gay rights groups to get their political views mandated in schools. Next on the agenda: the bullying bill, which is being pushed by the same crowd. Watch for it next January in Kentucky's General Assembly session.

No comments: