You don’t have to approve of it. You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to consider it moral. You don’t have to associate with any of Them outside of your professional responsibilities.
But you do not take it out on a seven-year-old kid.
LAFAYETTE, Louisiana (AP) — A 7-year-old boy was scolded and forced to write “I will never use the word ‘gay’ in school again” after he told a classmate about his lesbian mother, the American Civil Liberties Union alleged Monday.
Second-grader Marcus McLaurin was waiting for recess November 11 at Ernest Gaullet Elementary School when a classmate asked about Marcus’ mother and father, the ACLU said in a complaint.
Marcus responded he had two mothers because his mother is gay. When the other child asked for explanation, Marcus told him: “Gay is when a girl likes another girl,” according to the complaint.
A teacher who heard the remark scolded Marcus, telling him “gay” was a “bad word” and sending him to the principal’s office. The following week, Marcus had to come to school early and repeatedly write: “I will never use the word ‘gay’ in school again.”
Here’s the full ACLU press release on the matter, which goes into even more gory detail. There’s also a copy of the school incident report and the “behavior contract” that the kid had to fill out and sign; it’s simply appalling.
The teacher’s official description of the dire offense:
Marcus decided to explain to another child ni his group that his mom is gay. He told the other child that gay is when a girl likes a girl. This kind of discussion is not acceptable in my room. I feel that parents should explain things of this nature to their own children in their own way.
For his sins, Marcus had a conference wit the principal, his mother was contacted, he was formally reprimanded, and had to attend a “behavior clinic” for an hour before school the following week.
So remember, folks, in the ever-increasing realm of Things You Aren’t Allowed to Say, be sure and teach your child never to explain anything when asked, or talk to any other kids, since you never know when someone will throw a hissy fit and punish your kid for talking about something they feel is offensive.
The mind reels.
(via Volokh)
Kim read about this last night and we were horrified. It’s unbelievable the depths to which this sort of thing is going.
I hope they win and win HUGE.
Agreed.
I can’t believe that you are surprised. When a child gets a reprimand for playing Cowboys & Indians nothing concerning the public education system will surprise me.
True. On the other hand, I hope I continue to be surprised by this sort of thing. I’d hate to accept it as the normal course of things.
It sounds real cool that the public schools should teach character education, but this just shows how poorly they do it. Teach skills and leave whatever moral/religious education at home. If you want to teach homosexuality is wrong, fine or if you want to teach it is right that’s fine also. Just leave the schools and other parents out of it. It doesn’t take a village it takes parents (and an adult parents at that). We are teaching the next generation to be offended at the drop of a har. This is not at all a good thing.
That’s drop of a hat. We probably get offended at dropping hars too.
The hars are certainly offended, and they’re not going to take it any more. They demand a public apology and disciplinary action against the droppers! No more dropped hars!
That being said, what schools should be teaching is not morality, but civics. How does society work? How do we get along with others who believe differently than we do? What rules are appropriate, and how do we make sure they are obeyed? How do we obey the sovereign will of the majority, while still respecting and not oppressing the minority?
That’s very different from morality, and it’s far more appropriate for the schools.
The kid should shut his mouth, and the dumb fat lesbos should also shut their mouths. So what if you’re gay…stop pressing it in the faces of so many people, and corrupting children with it.
The hard part is moral philosophy can and does drive your view of society. John Adams put it this way:
So, the hard part of teaching liberal democracy in the schools is that is difficult to teach the results without the moral prerequisites. How do we do that without the moral consensus that we used to have in this country? It cannot be done by forcing a morality that people don’t have. I don’t think it can be done either by just teaching civics when people don’t respect other people’s rights. The schools are not equipped to deal with this and the slack will need to be picked up by other societal institutions.
Rich: There is something to what you say, though I’m not sure the degree of moral consensus in this country is significantly less today than it was in the past (or, I should say, more in the past than it is today). I’m not certain that respect of others’ rights is particular to past ostensible religious homogeneity, either; plenty of exceptions might be pointed out.
Evan: I don’t usually delete comments except for spam or egregiously personal insults. I prefer to allow people’s idiocy to make its own point. But you manage to come close to the line.
In this case, of course, there’s no evidence I’ve heard that the kid’s mom was “pressing it in the face” of anyone, nor corrupting any children. The kid was asked a simple question, and gave a very straightforward answer. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is a silly policy anyway, but it does require the “don’t ask” part to even stand a chance of working.
Having seen a picture of the mom, she doesn’t seem particularly fat to me, nor, having read what she writes, does she seem particularly dumb.
But, then, I’m not the expert here in that status.
The lack of consensus has more to do with post-modernism than religious homogeneity. The homogeneity during the founding period of our country has been overplayed. But, they did share a common belief in absolute truth. So, you could have Kant through his Categorical Imperative saying the same thing a Christian would through the Golden Rule. There was a good deal of divergence of religious belief but a good deal of convergence with respect to moral philosophy.
Now, you get more utilitarian reasoning. As long as people take the “long view” that they might be a minority in the future then you will protect the rights of the minority. But, you don’t get as often the reasoning of the past that protecting the minority is simply the right thing to do. Add to this the concept of the Constitution being a “living document” and the potential for disaster is pretty high.
There is one area where religion does enter in. During the founding period you had God (loosely defined) as the guarantor of rights. Now it is the state that is the guarantor. In the end, the state will only guarantee the rights of those currently in power. The minority then must gain their rights through the acquisition of power. Once they gain power, the cycle starts all over again. As you can see, this is a much less stable system.
Of course, the religious approach to human rights can and does get abused. This is the reason why the Apostle James states that the measure of your religious devotion is how you treat widows and orphans — the powerless.