Way to fight for bigotry and oppression, Garfield. If you had been in Footloose those kids wouldn’t be dancing.
I’d say that things from you come off very black and white, but you might show me another side of yourself I wouldn’t want to see in your attempt to enlighten.
When I was in high school, I had a stormy relationship with a girl whose parents were, pardon my French, fucking lunatics. After one particularly bad week, she cautioned me: “Daniel,” she said, “we’ve got to break up. Otherwise, I’m afraid my dad might do something awful to you.”
Lamia, tell me: was she making a forbidden threat to me? Why or why not?
If she’d told me that her Almight Father might do something awful to me, how would that have changed things?
AFAICT, it’s not a threat if you’re predicting the acts of a third party, especially if you’re not planning on (or able to) influencing those acts.
This is setting aside the fact that, as a judge said recently, US courts do not have jurisdiction over God :). Even if God is making a threat against gay students, who may hold him accountable? The T-shirt wearing student is, being completely charitable to the student’s religious views, simply passing along important information about the malice of the Almighty.
Daniel
Not quite. You are taking it for granted that the student being targetted with the shirt would be Christian. It ain’t necessarily so. Thus, it is forcing a narrow view of Christianity by a narrow Christian.
Well, he did quote from the New Testament, so I think it is a pretty safe bet that he ain’t Muslim. And I am not sure how you know he is a “narrow Christian” when you aren’t even sure he is a Christian.
Nor is there any sense in which he is “forcing” anything on anyone, anymore than the gay students are “forcing” their National Day of Silence on anyone.
Regards,
Shodan
No, I’m not taking it for granted; rather, by being charitable, I’m stipulating that the student is objectively correct, and that the Almighty is a malicious homophobe. If that is the case, then the student is performing a valuable service by letting folks know that, and is not issuing a threat.
If the student is mistaken, then he’s still not issuing a threat, but rather is passing along mistaken information in a belief that he’s performing a valuable service.
In any case, just like the girl in my (semifictionalized) story wasn’t threatening me by warning me of her father’s violent temper, this kid, asshole though me may be, wasn’t threatening the gay students by warning them of the Almighty’s violent temper.
Daniel
Maybe, although both interpretations require that we believe the student has the intent to warn/inform. What if his intent was merely to frighten people? But as I’ve said, I have yet to work out this warning vs. threat thing to my satisfaction, and I don’t want to derail this thread. This is a communication issue that I find interesting though, so I may start another thread myself later to discuss precisely what seperates a threat from a warning from a simple statement of fact.
Now, if the message on the shirt could fairly be considered a threat then that’s reason enough not to allow it, but that is not the only possible objection. Judging from my recent web search, the only reason given by the school for its action was that the shirt violated the dress code’s ban on clothing with messages that contain “derogatory connotations directed toward sexual identity.”
Not that I think this is a crucial point, but I meant to mention before that the shirt in question did not (as I had assumed) have a message written on it with marker pens. Photos of the shirt reveal that the message was actually written on pieces of masking tape that were stuck onto a t-shirt. So despite the student’s supposedly deeply held religious beliefs about homosexuality and his willingness to sue in order to defend his right to express those beliefs as he sees fit, he apparently didn’t care enough about the issue to waste a perfectly good shirt on it. I’m not claiming deep significance for this, but I thought it was funny.
Which still ignores the fact that not all students are Christian, thus this is proselytizing and forcing Christianity on others as well as forcing bigotry.
It was once said that patriotism was the last refuge of scoundrels. It seems that Christianity is a refuge even lower.
I’m not ignoring that; if anything, the fact that it’s proselytizing increases his religious protection. My point is that he’s not indicating that anyone’s going to take any illegal course of action, since God (assuming God exists) is not subject to US law. If God doesn’t exist, then there’s nobody to take illegal action in the first place.
Daniel
And not all students are gay or gay-friendly, and therefore the National Day of Silence is proselytizing and forcing homosexuality on others as well.
Regards,
Shodan
Increased protection for proselytizing? What are you smoking and why aren’t you sharing with the rest of us?
Care to explain that? It’s been such a normal morning that a walk through the looking glass that is your ‘mind’ should be entertaining.
To inform and to promote sensitivity is not forcing homosexuality on others. Removing the invisibility of gays and lesbians so that they cannot be ignored for a day by those who would rather not have them exist is not proselytizing.
Or are you now going to go into a modified Anita Bryant mode and claim that we recruit?
This is insignificant. We’ve got four possibilities:
Again, though, a threat doesn’t simply mean “intent to frighten.” It means that the threater is promising to take a course of action that will frighten the listener. I can’t threaten you with lightning strikes, but the sky can threaten rain. I can’t threaten you with fire and brimstone; the most I can do is tell you about it, rightly or wrongly.
Daniel
I’m smoking a primo blend called “Become insulting and find your future posts in the thread ignored.” You can mix it up yourself.
Daniel
And still you think this is appropriate and you argue for it. Why?
And here I thought you were smoking "I can’t read the rules and flout that my ignore list is not to be discussed in public.’ Silly me.
Well, I can try.
Do you see any parallels between these two statements?
Your original statement was that, since not all students agreed with the statements expressed by the t-shirt, this was “forcing Christianity” on the targetted audience. (This almost immediately after denying that the student was necessarily Christian, but I think you realized from my post how ridiculous that assertion was.)
But the fact is that one student wore a t-shirt disagreeing with the sentiments he felt had been expressed by the National Day of Silence, then it follows that not all the students in the targetted audience of the NDoS agreed with that sentiment. And thus the National Day of Silence was equally an example of “forcing” a point of view on an audience, and proselytization.
See how it works? You assert that expressing a point of view to an audience not already convinced is proselytization. And you allege that such proselytization is wrong and should be banned. Then I point out the contradiction in this position, in that you don’t apparently think the National Day of Silence should be banned, even though it is “forced” and “proselytization” in exactly the same sense.
The next step is usually for you to immediately post that the sentiments expressed by the t-shirt are wrong and should be banned. Then I will immediately post that your opinions (or mine, or the school administration’s) about the rightness or otherwise are meaningless. The Constitution guarantees that students are allowed to express their opinions in non-disruptive ways, even if those opinions are not to your taste (or my taste, or the school administration’s taste).
I won’t. You have, when you claimed that symbolic speech to an unconvinced audience is necessarily “proselytizing”.
Regards,
Shodan
How is “making anti-LGBT bias unacceptable in schools” proselytizing? If someone protests this idea, they are saying that GLBT students SHOULD be subject to bias in schools based on their sexuality. I can see where it is “okay” (in the school rules sense of the word) to hold this belief, but stating it in a public school forum sounds to me like a case of harassment.
I also wanted to comment that Lamia has expressed my thoughts on this topic much more eloquently than I ever could.
Pash
No, we have covered that issue rather extensively. It isn’t harassment unless it is disruptive in some way. The t-shirt wasn’t, anymore than the National Day of Silence was.
The notion that “GLBT students SHOULD be subject to bias” is protected speech. So is the notion that “GLBT students SHOULD NOT be subject to bias”. Both are “proselytizing” on behalf of an opinion. Whether or not someone else agrees with the opinion is not relevant. Freedom of speech applies to everyone, not just the ones we agree with.
It’s a difficult concept to get used to. But it is very, very important.
Government may not silence people who hold unpopular opinions. Even if they are - well, unpopular.
Maybe every teacher in your school thinks Kerry is an asshole. They may not stop you from expressing your support for his campaign in some non-disruptive manner.
And no, gay rights are not any different.
Regards,
Shodan
The disruption is caused by the harassment, not the other way around. If the red-haired students weren’t able to walk through the halls without constant reminders that they were not worthy of the same respect of the other students, and the administration turned a blind eye, that is a disruptive environment for the red heads. It may not be disruptive for the overall day-to-day school processes, but that doesn’t make it any less a case of harassment.
If I were in a fictional movie, I’d have learned my lines and performed them to the best of my ability. Life, such as it is, requires me to figure out my own stances on opinions instead of parroting.
Free speech can have some unintended consequences to be sure, but I prefer it.
I’d say that you should turn away, lest I or someone else offend your delicate sensibilities.