Same-Sex Marriage General Discussion Thread

[Pearl]

[** first 2 posts split from this thread ~y. **]





Sorry if I am hijacking this thread, but I don't know where else to put this. I figure the thread would be like the previous one, an ongoing discussion on same sex marriage. If so, then I guess its OK to post this. Think of it as a continuation of the Bert & Ernie debate:

This isn’t really about television programming at all, though. That’s just where it manifests and boils over. We don’t need Bert and Ernie to get married to show tolerance. We need Mommy and Daddy to have more tolerance. We don’t need SpongeBob and Mr. Krabs to show both sides of the global warming issue. We need Mommy and Daddy to get educated about what is happening in our world.

Read more: The Bert & Ernie Debate and What it Says About Grown-Up Agendas - FoxBusiness.com

[yolland]

Yes, provided the threadstarter doesn't object, I think it's fine to treat this as the new general SSM discussion thread. If not, we can always split it.



Re: the Bert & Ernie thing--this seems to be largely a media-manufactured story (the campaign was quite obscure before the 'MSM' picked it up). Personally, I don't care how exactly these characters' relationship is presented; that said, introducing the notion of same-sex romantic love to children at the younger end of SS' target demographic seems like kind of a lost cause to me. Kids that young do have some limited conceptual use for categories like "mommies and daddies" (so there's always the "two mommies/daddies" possibility), but ultimately, adults only mean something to them as fixtures of their own social worlds; they don't actually think or care about what adults as individuals need, want or love. (At that age, simply getting across that other children don't like to be hit by them, and what it means to say that, is often effort enough.) For the older end of the show's demographic, that's a different story; their grasp of mutuality in social relations is much stronger and by that age they do appreciate basic discussions about the particular kind of love adults have for each other. Whatever, I think a same-sex puppet couple would be fine and can appreciate an exposure-for-familiarity's-sake argument; I just think any resulting enhancements in actual understanding would probably be very small.

[Pearl]

A former “Teacher of the Year” in Mount Dora, Fla. has been suspended and could lose his job after he voiced his objection to gay marriage on his personal Facebook page.
Jerry Buell, a veteran American history teacher at Mount Dora High School, was removed from his teaching duties this week 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.
Patton said Buell has taught in the school system for 22 years and has a spotless record. Last year, he was selected as the high school’s “Teacher of the Year.”
But now his job is on the line because of what some have called anti-gay and homophobic comments.
Buell told Fox News Radio that he was stunned by the accusations. “It was my own personal comment on my own personal time on my own personal computer in my own personal house, exercising what I believed as a social studies teacher to be my First Amendment rights,” he said.
The school system declined to comment on the specific Facebook messages that led to their investigation, but Buell provided Fox News Radio with a copy of the two Facebook messages that he said landed him in trouble.
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.”

Read more: Florida Teacher Suspended For Anti-Gay Marriage Posts On Personal Facebook Page | FoxNews.com

Even though it is freedom of speech, this teacher needs to realize that he likely has a gay student or two, and him ranting against homosexuality can really hurt them. With freedom of speech comes responsibility.

[yolland]

^ I was thinking this sounded like an overstep on the school administration's part, until I read the content of his Facebook posts. Yeah, I don't know the details of this school's ethics code or how they'd stand up in a court, but as a teacher I've got no sympathy for any teacher who thinks it should be A-OK for him to say in a public space (he had more than 700 Facebook friends, per the article) that certain groups of people--which just happen to include some of his students--make him want to vomit in disgust, that their love relationships are cesspools, and that he'll miss their good regard like he'll miss his kidney stone should such sentiments change their feelings towards him. And I don't buy for a minute that he was merely expressing his doctrinally informed views as a Christian. Anyone who talks like that clearly has personal emotional issues with gay people, and is not just seeking to lovingly share God's Plan with others.

[the iron horse]

Originally Posted by Pearl

Read more: Florida Teacher Suspended For Anti-Gay Marriage Posts On Personal Facebook Page | FoxNews.com

Even though it is freedom of speech, this teacher needs to realize that he likely has a gay student or two, and him ranting against homosexuality can really hurt them. With freedom of speech comes responsibility.

What does that mean?

[Pearl]

You know what it means. Don't play games here.

[the iron horse]

Originally Posted by Pearl

You know what it means. Don't play games here.

I'm not playing a game.

Are you saying free speech should be retrictecd if it offends?

[Pearl]

Uhm, yeah.

Would you support a racist teacher voicing his beliefs towards African-Americans in class? Or an anti-Semite doing the same thing and denying the Holocaust to his students?

It's the same thing.

[maycocksean]

**sigh**

How does this guy not understand that Facebook is a PUBLIC forum and what he says there is bound to have PUBLIC consequences, since he teaches in a PUBLIC school! Has he just not been paying attention?

I never cease to be amazed by how stupid people continue to be about the internet.

As for what he said, yes, I think he should be held accountable given the impact it might have on his students.

[the iron horse]

Originally Posted by Pearl

Uhm, yeah.

Would you support a racist teacher voicing his beliefs towards African-Americans in class? Or an anti-Semite doing the same thing and denying the Holocaust to his students?

It's the same thing.

Yes.

[Pearl]

How can you?

You've said in the past we got to put away our crayons, or something like that. Yet, you support people saying hateful things, ripping away another person's humanity and sense of self?

Why do you say you support hate speech?

[the iron horse]

Originally Posted by Pearl

How can you?

You've said in the past we got to put away our crayons, or something like that. Yet, you support people saying hateful things, ripping away another person's humanity and sense of self?

Why do you say you support hate speech?

Why are you against free speech?

[Pearl]

You didn't answer my question. I'm not responding to yours unless you respond to mine.

Which you should because you're coming across like someone who is callous to minorities.

[maycocksean]

Originally Posted by the iron horse

Why are you against free speech?

Surely you would agree that a teacher has some responsibility to the students he or she teaches to use discretion in the views he or she chooses to air publically.

What about the gay student who has this person as his teacher?

I know how I felt hearing my 8th grade math teacher proclaim that he "didn't like niggers."

[trojanchick99]

Originally Posted by the iron horse

Why are you against free speech?

We aren't against free speech. However, just because you can say hateful things, doesn't mean there will not be consequences.

[Diemen]

Originally Posted by the iron horse

Why are you against free speech?

It appears that you're operating under the false assumption that free speech = consequence-free speech.

[BVS]

Originally Posted by the iron horse

Why are you against free speech?

You really don't understand this subject do you?

[U2DMfan]

Originally Posted by the iron horse

Are you saying free speech should be retrictecd if it offends?

I'll answer you specifically. You're obfuscating the issue.
Stop picking 'liberty' fights that aren't worth fighting. There are plenty of other real fights/arguments for liberty that need to be made.

Nobody is placing a muzzle on anybody. They're just saying "if you want to be a public employee, paid by the taxpayer...then you can't espouse hate". He can be a non-teacher and rail against gays all the wants.

I can say "Wop" all I want within the confines of my home or anywhere else for that matter. But if I say that, while working at an Italian restaurant and the boss fires me because of customer complaints, then he has that right.

You aren't literally restricted in your speech. You just aren't entitled to public employment regardless of what you say. As diemen said, there are consequences. Simple enough?

[BVS]

Originally Posted by U2DMfan

Stop picking 'liberty' fights that aren't worth fighting.

But honestly this isn't a "liberty" fight at all.

Freedom of speech is the concept that government will not censor speech, nowhere does it say that the speech will not have consequences.

People have disorted this concept into 'I should be able to say anything I want anywhere and have no consequences', but that's not how it works, nor how it was designed.

[maycocksean]

True. It's not like the guy was imprisoned.