# Should anti-gay activists be public high school teachers? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 10, 2014, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-anti-gay-activists-be-public-high-school-teachers/700995 "2014-10-10T20:09:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-anti-gay-activists-be-public-high-school-teachers/700995/41 "2014-10-11T04:45:13Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > I don’t know what the legalistic jungle looks like but I rather like your comparison to a white supremacist. If there are doubts about the teacher’s ability to properly educate their students that fall into a particular demographic then I don’t think they should be in a teaching position. High school is difficult enough and the homophobia can fuck you up real good when it’s non-directed. I shudder to think how difficult a class would be with a homophobic teacher and an out LGBT student. This. Allowing someone like this in a position of authority over kids is just asking for LGBT or just suspected LGBT) students to be subjected to bullying at best, with a strong likelihood of it escalating to assault, rape and murder. > [@btthegreat](#): > > High school students don’t need to be sheltered from authority figures on soapboxes, they need to learn how to think about how to knock them off that box or how to build their own or if they want to get back on topic, how to move that soapbox. > > if my kid comes home complaining about a pontificating teacher, the last thing I am going to do is involve myself. Espcially if his ideas tick my kid off. I think that is likely to be a very good start. And if your kid [suicides](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_among_LGBT_youth)? Or is raped, beaten or murdered by other students who listened to that “pontificating teacher” and took his or her message to heart? ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-anti-gay-activists-be-public-high-school-teachers/700995/42 "2014-10-11T04:49:16Z")
> [@btthegreat](#): > > if my kid comes home complaining about a pontificating teacher, the last thing I am going to do is involve myself. Espcially if his ideas tick my kid off. I think that is likely to be a very good start. Ideas that make your kid angry are one thing. Ideas that make your kid believe s/he is worthless and stupid and will never be able to get ahead are something else. So are ideas that teach your kid it’s okay to be a bully, to discriminate against others on the basis of race or religion or orientation, and so forth. Would you involve yourself if your kid came home and announced that Mr. Teacher says that Christians are inherently stupid and will never ever under any circumstances earn an A in the class? [Substitute your religion or atheism/agnosticism as appropriate.] How about if Mrs. Teacher says it is okay to go burn crosses in the front yards of minority students, because “those sorts” don’t deserve to live in America anyway? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-anti-gay-activists-be-public-high-school-teachers/700995/43 "2014-10-11T06:06:40Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > So, in the end, if the school can ensure that they will not allow someone’s private belief to be reason for punishments, then fine, get rid of the guy with the public hateful blog. But if they are not willing to fight for the right of someone to hold private belief that, say opposes SSM, then I think they need to let any teacher hold pretty much any belief they want—as long as it does not enter the classroom. I don’t prefer this option, but I think the largest crime here is to allow a teacher to be pushed out via a manufactured firestorm. Certainly no school should punish a teacher who, for instance, said he or she is opposed to SSM. This person went a lot further than that. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-anti-gay-activists-be-public-high-school-teachers/700995/44 "2014-10-11T06:12:49Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Posing nude? I know several people who did that for money in college-- they posed for life drawing classes. One went on to become an art teacher, and a good friend of mine. You’re going to have to be a lot more specific about what you mean by “posing nude.” If you mean texting pictures of their junk in ways that make it pretty easy for it to end up on a free public website, that shows poor judgment, and if it’s yet another example of questionable judgment on the part of the teacher, I might have a problem with it. > > You’re going to have to be a lot more specific in what you mean by “posing nude.” In general, I don’t have a problem with it. You surely aren’t talking about a teacher posing nude in the classroom for the students? Yes, that I have a problem with. It was a hypothetical so that I didn’t have to look up the cases, but my scenario is that she posed for a magazine. So, no expectation of privacy. I’m fairly sure that teachers have gotten in trouble for this, and I think we’ve had threads on it. Many schools have or used to have morality clauses. The point is that a homophobe is much less moral than a nude teacher, and if anyone thinks he should keep his job while the teacher loses hers - well, that person’s moral sense should be recalibrated. Nude directly in front of student in school or out - definitely a firing offense. (Unless there is a popular nude beach around or something.) ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-anti-gay-activists-be-public-high-school-teachers/700995/45 "2014-10-11T08:13:19Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Certainly no school should punish a teacher who, for instance, said he or she is opposed to SSM. This person went a lot further than that. We’re in agreement on that. My point was to raise what would happen when the person, in a liberal district, you just described is found to have those views and then some students or teachers or parents try to make such belief one that cannot stand in their school. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-anti-gay-activists-be-public-high-school-teachers/700995/46 "2014-10-11T09:54:37Z")
> [@btthegreat](#): > > We see this so differently. I see high school classrooms sanitized from controversial ideas, unpopular opinions and students who graduate who just cannot handle the fundamental truth that if you can’t handle people offending you, you can’t handle expsoure to the ideas that shock you into thinking and exploring past what your parents and your community want you to. > > I think the class subject box can be stiflling rather than stimulating, arbitrary rather than interdisciplinary and the less we micromanage a teachers style the better. > > High school students don’t need to be sheltered from authority figures on soapboxes, they need to learn how to think about how to knock them off that box or how to build their own or if they want to get back on topic, how to move that soapbox. > > if my kid comes home complaining about a pontificating teacher, the last thing I am going to do is involve myself. Espcially if his ideas tick my kid off. I think that is likely to be a very good start. I had teachers in high school who spent so much time on their pet theory, that we never got around the the subject matter. I was missing information when I got to college in one area because of a teacher who did this. The other guy taught “Health,” a required class no one liked, so the fact that he rambled on and on, and we never had tests wasn’t a big deal. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-anti-gay-activists-be-public-high-school-teachers/700995/47 "2014-10-11T12:35:37Z")
> **[FL Teacher Fired After Side Job as 'Eyecandy Model' Surfaces \[NSFW\]](https://www.gawker.com/fl-teacher-fired-after-side-job-as-eyecandy-model-su-493845937)** > > A 26-year-old English teacher from Boca Raton, Florida, was fired from her job late last month after officials at Martin County High School discovered she was moonlighting as an "eyecandy model" under an assumed identity. > **[Spanish high school teacher who posed naked for Playboy is fired](https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/spanish-teacher-posed-naked-playboy-fired-article-1.1487060)** > > The Texas high school Spanish teacher who came under fire for posing naked for Playboy while in college has been fired, according to reports. Cristy Nicole Deweese, 21, sparked outrage from students' parents last week when it emerged that she'd... Here are a couple of stories about teachers being fired for nudity. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-anti-gay-activists-be-public-high-school-teachers/700995/48 "2014-10-11T14:58:32Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > So are ideas that teach your kid it’s okay to be a bully, to discriminate against others on the basis of race or \*\*religion \*\*or orientation, and so forth. What if people oppose homosexuality for religious reasons? Do we still tolerate the religion? ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-anti-gay-activists-be-public-high-school-teachers/700995/49 "2014-10-11T15:10:29Z")
Yes. But not the discrimination. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-anti-gay-activists-be-public-high-school-teachers/700995/50 "2014-10-11T16:12:18Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > What if people oppose homosexuality for religious reasons? > Do we still tolerate the religion? Consider Christian Identity, a religion that opposes nonwhites for religious reasons. Do we tolerate the religion? Consider Salafi Islam, especially strains that support terrorism against the US. Do we tolerate the religion? You may object, with some justification, that these are not proper analogies: whereas the jerk in the OP merely believes in eternal damnation for secular humanists, the Identity Christian believes in removing legal protection for nonwhites, and the Salafist believes in murdering Americans. These are in crucial ways different. However, they are in a crucial way similar: they are all religious beliefs that actively work against our pluralistic democratic society, and they are all religious beliefs that, when revealed, are likely to make a significant number of students justifiably uncomfortable in the classroom, so uncomfortable that their ability to learn from the teacher will be impaired. I certainly don’t think that smoeone’s religious beliefs should be a prima facie reason to kick them out of a school. But I also don’t think that, if a belief would otherwise disqualify someone for a job, dressing the belief up in religious clothing makes it acceptable. So the question should not hinge around whether religious beliefs are respected. The religious status of the belief should be irrelevant. What should be at issue is whether these specific beliefs, accompanied by these forms of promulgation, are appropriate for a public school teacher, regardless of their provenance. ---
**Author:** ![Truman\_Burbank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@Truman\_Burbank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truman_Burbank)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-anti-gay-activists-be-public-high-school-teachers/700995/51 "2014-10-11T17:22:24Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > I’d be questioning the ability of any employee to do his or her job while vocally and publicly expressing a vote of no-confidence in the administration, coworkers and clients of my business. > > Fire his ass. Not because of his beliefs, but because he is actively working against successful outcomes for his employer. Make the teacher a pro-civil rights person, in 1962 Mississippi, and we ‘fire his ass’ because his employer is still in favor of Jim Crow laws and defacto discrimination against blacks, and this is the law of the land, to boot. So I would be expressing a vote of no confidence if I criticize those policies. So I think the basis of the decision can’t be primarily, or maybe shouldn’t be, current community standards. Seems to me this becomes too subjective, and we cheer or jeer depending upon whose ox is gored. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-anti-gay-activists-be-public-high-school-teachers/700995/52 "2014-10-11T18:23:24Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > A classroom is not a soapbox. A teacher is there to teach a particular subject, and if a teacher is drifting off the subject onto some kind of pet topic, and not teaching the subject, he’s not doing his job. It doesn’t matter if the subject is why you shouldn’t do drugs, why the Kennedy assassination was a wide-ranging conspiracy, that it’s wrong to declaw your cats, or that gay people are going to hell. It isn’t censorship for the school to say “Cut it out and teach your subject.” > > The teacher can do what he likes on his own time, and if the school threatens to fire him for expressing his opinion in an appropriate forum on his own time, that is something different entirely, but it doesn’t sound like that is what is happening. Was he threatened with firing? It seems like people objected to the Holocaust language more than the fact that a virulently anti-gay teacher was at the school. As a Jew who was mostly raised by my aunt, who survived the Holocaust, I found the language offensive too. No one in a majority position like Christians in the US should ever play the Hitler card. > > But that’s not relevant. How does he behave in the classroom? I don’t think we know. > > Is this incident going to cause parents to request that their children not be placed in his classroom? If that happens, then the school has a problem. Those are good points, but I’m not sure I agree with “The teacher can do what he likes on his own time” as necessarily a universal truth, nor do I believe that it’s actually the case in many places. Obviously if he’s spouting this stuff in the classroom he deserves to have his ass fired on the spot, but even if he’s not – or not obviously or directly – is it not usually the case that teachers are held to a much higher standard than most other employees, precisely because of their influence on kids and presumed role as mentors? Would anyone hire a convicted – or even suspected – child molester as a teacher just because he promised never to molest anyone in the classroom? How about a neo-Nazi? A reformed drug dealer? Even ordinary companies that try to project a reputable image in the community often have behavior expectations for their employees outside of work – the standards for teachers should be the highest of all. It’s the nature of the job, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-anti-gay-activists-be-public-high-school-teachers/700995/53 "2014-10-11T18:45:52Z")
> [@Truman\_Burbank](#): > > Make the teacher a pro-civil rights person, in 1962 Mississippi, and we ‘fire his ass’ because his employer is still in favor of Jim Crow laws and defacto discrimination against blacks, and this is the law of the land, to boot. So I would be expressing a vote of no confidence if I criticize those policies. So I think the basis of the decision can’t be primarily, or maybe shouldn’t be, current community standards. Seems to me this becomes too subjective, and we cheer or jeer depending upon whose ox is gored. Agreed, actually. We can even put it today. Imagine a TOTALLY HYPOTHETICAL teacher who objects to the amount of standardized testing that students are required to undergo, who writes an opinion piece suggesting that such tests are inappropriate and that they’re a major problem with our educational system. That would be a significant vote of no confidence in our current educational policy, but I’d be very uncomfortable with firing the teacher for that reason. The difference, I think, is again whether students in this teacher’s class would be made to feel unsafe. At the risk of sounding all touchy-feely, I genuinely think students need to feel psychologically safe in a classroom in order to learn the most they can. This doesn’t mean a teacher never challenges a student’s beliefs, but it does mean a teacher cannot indicate that the student is by their existence a problem. A teacher who thinks black students are subhuman, or who thinks that lesbians are agents of Satan, is most likely unfit for the classroom. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-anti-gay-activists-be-public-high-school-teachers/700995/54 "2014-10-11T19:58:06Z")
There is a difference of degree, here, as well. Saying, “I think the current focus on testing is ultimately detrimental to the education of our students,” is a far cry from, “This school is a concentration camp.” ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-anti-gay-activists-be-public-high-school-teachers/700995/55 "2014-10-11T20:03:51Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > There is a difference of degree, here, as well. Saying, “I think the current focus on testing is ultimately detrimental to the education of our students,” is a far cry from, “This school is a concentration camp.” That’s true. If my COMPLETELY HYPOTHETICAL teacher thought that standardized testing was sucking all the joy out of childhood and destroying children’s souls, he would be well advised to tone down his rhetoric in public. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-anti-gay-activists-be-public-high-school-teachers/700995/56 "2014-10-12T03:49:11Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > We’re in agreement on that. My point was to raise what would happen when the person, in a liberal district, you just described is found to have those views and then some students or teachers or parents try to make such belief one that cannot stand in their school. My district is very liberal, and my kids had a teacher in high school sociology class who was conservative and religious, and let the kids know it. No problems at all. No evidence at all he even had the slightest trace of homophobia, so I admit it is not an exact example. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-anti-gay-activists-be-public-high-school-teachers/700995/57 "2014-10-12T21:14:16Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > But is criticism of one aspect of the curriculum “denigrating” anything. Let’s say that an atheist teacher in Texas recommend to parents that they send their kid to a private school who not only taught evolution but didn’t mention creationism, is that similarly “denigrating” the school. I get the idea that you approve of the firing of the teacher in the example you shared. How about in my example. Should that public school teacher similarly be fired? The example seems completely different to me. Your teacher apparently doesn’t engage in a public debate against public school, don’t say that what is taught in school shouldn’t be taught, there’s no reason to assume he might be unwilling to teach his subject matter or comply with the official program… You’re example seems more similar to a teacher privately advising parents that such and such private school is better that the public school where he teaches. ---
**Author:** ![GoodOmens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@GoodOmens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GoodOmens)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-anti-gay-activists-be-public-high-school-teachers/700995/58 "2014-10-13T12:07:16Z")
> [@Meltdown](#): > > It depends on how well he can keep his personal feelings outside the classroom. If he treats gay students differently, or makes them feel ashamed, or anything of the sort – then yeah, he should be removed. If he treats all students with the same level of respect and doesn’t promote his agenda within the school walls, then I wouldn’t have a problem with him. This, right here. Every teacher has his or her own set of prejudices, biases, etc. The critical aspect is the professionalism to put aside those biases and treat students as students. Not everyone can do that. Or, more briefly, /thread. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-anti-gay-activists-be-public-high-school-teachers/700995/59 "2014-10-15T04:23:36Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > If a pro-gay activist can be a public school teacher, so can an anti-gay activist. This is one of the all-time dumbest statements I’ve ever read on these boards. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-anti-gay-activists-be-public-high-school-teachers/700995/60 "2014-10-15T04:58:04Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Certainly no school should punish a teacher who, for instance, said he or she is opposed to SSM. This person went a lot further than that. I don’t dispute that. But what if there were a teacher in a very liberal district, say Berkeley. What do you think the odds are of him getting the Brendan Eich treatment? “We’re Berkeley! This man doesn’t share our values, blah blah, blah.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-anti-gay-activists-be-public-high-school-teachers/700995.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-anti-gay-activists-be-public-high-school-teachers/700995.md?page=4)