"Homsexuality Is Shameful" Kid Loses

[Spensed]

....the trouble with restricting any form of speech is that the people in power determine what's restricted.

That isn't true in the US. It's the courts that determine whether freedom of speech has to be restricted by some other vital interest. While the courts can be, in effect, controlled by judicial appointments, etc., the judges still have to operate within legal principles.

Weighing the right to free speech against other more important interests is nothing new and has gone on for decades.

You only have to substitute racial or anti-Semitic lor obscene pedophilic language or whatever for the anti-gay language on the tee shirt to see the wisdom of the court's decision.

 

[Singularity]

Free Speech =/= Hate Speech

Can somebody please print a few thousand T-shirts with that on it?

I'd buy one.

 

[innocentbychoice]

How come some people here are defending the kid because he was expressing himself? That's ridiculous.

You're free to say WHATEVER you want as long as you don't hurt anyone.

If you want to make clear you don't like homosexuality say "I don't agree with homosexuality" that way you would be talking about YOU and what YOU THINK and not stating "homosexuality is shameful" just because you don't like it. That's offensive and is bound to cause confrontation. Do you see what I say?

And the ones who said if anybody had a problem with it should just have confronted him personally or ripped the tape are promoting bullying and fighting. How is THAT any better than jusr removing the kid for his hate speech? Ridiculous advice.

As I said, if they want to exercise their freedom of speech, they should find a way to make their damn speech express their opinion without being hurtful or offensive, if they're able to read or write I'm sure they can find a way to do that.

 

[RobinGoodfellow]

This has gone back and forth over the past 40 years, with a tendency for a school setting to be exempt from normal rules when the court is majority-right and not when it's majority-moderate (hasn't been a leftist court in my lifetime).

Not so much. Schools have always been able to limit free speech; this has been upheld for quite a while.

Are you saying that the current state of the law is that school settings ARE exempt from the First Amendment? Because that wasn't true when I was in high school, and IMO shouldn't be true now. It has not always been so, for certain.

As I know, it has always been so. I'm trying to think of a time when students wouldn't have been at least suspended for protests in school, and I can't.

So are you claiming specific familiarity with current SCOTUS rulings and caselaw, or are you simply incorrect?

I'm trying to think of an exception, but all I'm coming up with are non-exceptions ("Bong hits 4 Jesus", anyone?). I also can't think of any cases that have made it to the SCOTUS re: freedom of expression in public high schools. Care to enlighten?

RG

 

[sunoftheskye]

Just watching the news, in my hometown a senior police office sent an email to his subordinates spewing hate against racial and sexual minorities. The city police force have gone insane and have fired him, and it's the first news story. This is what I like, I'd much prefer see people being protected from hate, than protecting my right to say whatever it is I want when I want...

That example doesn't relate to this at all. You have the right to say whatever you want without being legally reprimanded for the speech itself, but what you just described can be considered harassment and is obviously unprofessional, which is why he was fired.

No one would advocate someone saying that to their subordinates in a place of work.

 

[sunoftheskye]

Freedom of speech protects the speech you hate...not what you agree with.

In this case though I don't think his freedom of speech was violated. He was in an instution owned by others, and when you're on private property, the owners/admin. calls the shots about what's acceptable and what isn't.

I'd fully support his being able to wear the same shirt with the same message out in the general public. May not like his message, but he has a right to speak/broadcast it.

Exactly.

 

[sunoftheskye]

ahhh i see i see.. but spewing it at school is okay. got ya
work bad, school okay

No, in fact my point was it was wrong in both instances. Because they're both places where that kind of thing is inappropriate.

 

[sunoftheskye]

Then what was the point attacking what I said? I said it to compare to this kid in school. It is wrong for hate speech in both school and work, everywhere, and I used what I had just seen on tv as an example. In response to what I had posted, you said the cop was fired for harassment or being unprofessional, yet the news made it out that he was fired for practicing hate toward the minority groups. It's not tolerated, and shouldn't be tolerated at school. So yes, yes it does have relevance to this conversation. But, I am happy that you agree hate speech is inappropriate.

Because you want protection from hate speech to go beyond work and public school. Which is a dangerous game to play.

 

[thewiz]

I have a freedom of speech but that doesn't give me a right to yell out "fire" in a crowded theater. He certainly has a right to say whatever he likes unless and until it begins to step on someone else's rights. Expressing hate against individuals or any group is not a protected right.

I agree someone should have had a shirt made up with an arrow pointing his direction that said "gives great head" and followed him around every day. I believe I just saw him with Sen. Craig at Union Station....must have been picking up paper on the floor.

 

[sunoftheskye]

^ This kids shirt is no where near the same as yelling "fire" in a crowded theater.

I think his point was that there ARE limits to free speech.

 

[Spensed]

^ This kids shirt is no where near the same as yelling "fire" in a crowded theater.

Not literally. But, in the homophobic and gay bashing context of many teenage years' schools, it's just as dangerous or worse.

My guess is that you're just trolling. But, by way, of example, from today's paper:

Police say the 15-year-old [Lawrence King], who students say had been teased at school for his effeminate dress, was gunned down early Tuesday by a student in his English class.

His alleged assailant, Brandon McInerney, 14, has been charged with first-degree murder with the special allegation of a hate crime.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-oxnard16feb16,0,121816.story

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-oxnard1_jw7i06nc,0,3434409.photo

Lawrence King R.I.P.