Fox News: “Florida Teacher Suspended for Anti-Gay Marriage Posts on Personal Facebook Page”
This is stunning. But I think there’s no way the school’s outrageous action against the veteran and awarded high school history teacher, Jerry Buell, can stand in the courts. While the school declined to provide to Fox News the two messages on Buell’s Facebook page last month for which they suspended him, Buell himself has supplied them:
First message: “I’m watching the news, eating dinner when the story about New York okaying same-sex unions came on and I almost threw up. 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?”
Second message, three minutes later: “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.”
And the school’s basis for the suspension? “They were especially concerned that gay students at the school might be frightened or intimidated walking into his classroom.”
We know what liberals really want. They want to prohibit and outlaw non-liberal views. They can get away with that in Britain and Europe, but, as far gone as we are, not here, because of the free speech protections in the U.S. Constitution and in every state constitution.
Here’s the article:
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.”
According to the school system, what Buell wrote on his private account was disturbing. They were especially concerned that gay students at the school might be frightened or intimidated walking into his classroom. Patton also disputed the notion that Buell’s Facebook account is private.
“He has (more than) 700 friends,” he said. “How private is that—really? Social media can be troubling if you don’t respect it and know that just because you think you are in a private realm—it’s not private.”
Buell’s attorney strongly disagreed and accused the school system of violating his First Amendment rights.
“The school district is being anti-straight, anti-First Amendment and anti-personal liberty,” said Horatio Mihet, an attorney with the Liberty Counsel. “The idea that public servants have to whole-heartedly endorse homosexual marriage is repugnant to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” Mihet told Fox News Radio.
“All he did was speak out on an issue of national importance and because his comments did not fit a particular mold, he is now being investigated and could possibly lose his job. What have we come to?”
Buell said he does not know the individual who filed the complaint, but the past week has caused his family “heartache.”
“To try and say you could lose your job over speaking about something in the venue that I did in the manner that I did is not just a knee-jerk reaction,” he said. “It’s a violent reaction to one person making a complaint.”
But Patton said the school system has an obligation to take the comments seriously. He said Buell will not be allowed back in the classroom “until we do all the interviews and do a thorough job of looking at everything—past or previous writings.”
To accomplish that, he said people have been sending the school system screenshots of Buell’s Facebook page.
“Just because you think it’s private, other people are viewing it,” Patton said, noting that the teacher’s Facebook page also contained numerous Bible passages.
Mihet said he was livid.
“These are not fringe ideas that Mr. Buell espoused on his personal Facebook page,” he told Fox News Radio. “They are mainstream textbook opposition to homosexual unions—and now he’s been deemed unfit to teach children because he opposes gay marriage? My goodness.” Buell believes the school system is trying to send a message to Christian teachers.
“There is an intimidation factor if you are a Christian or if you make a statement against it (gay marriage) you are a bigot, a homophobe, you’re a creep, you’re intolerant,” he said. “We should have the right to express our opinions and talk about things.”
But some legal experts believe that school teachers could be held to a different standard when it comes to using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.
“This teacher is right on the cusp of going over the line,” said Miami attorney Justin Leto. “If he is ‘friends’ with his students on Facebook, then I think he should not be surprised by the school’s actions. However, if he has a private page and restricts student access, then he should be free to say what he wishes.”
Leto said teachers should have the right to make statements about their own personal beliefs without fear of retribution from their employer. “This assumes that the comments are not hateful, racist or malicious,” he said.
“It’s a little bit more complicated with a school teacher,” said Brad Jacob, a law professor at Regent University. “The first question you have to ask, did this context communicate that the teacher was speaking on behalf of the government?”
But what about on social networking sites, like Facebook and Twitter? “School teachers generally have free speech rights, and the government may not censor the private speech on public school teachers,” he said.
However, if Buell had communicated his opinion on gay marriage in the classroom, Jacob said the teacher would have been on shaky legal ground. “If he communicated those views in the classroom, I think the state could have grounds to punish or fire him,” he said.
Reaction in Central Florida has been mixed.
Brett Winters, a former Mount Dora student, told the Orlando Sentinel he was disappointed about Buell’s comments. “This type of hateful language is dangerous not only to gay students, but also to anti-gay students,” Winters told the newspaper.
Michael Slaymaker, president of the Orlando Youth Alliance, told the newspaper that gay students might feel uncomfortable in Buell’s class.
“I would hope a teacher would be there to help them and not hurt them,” he told the Orlando Sentinel.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people have joined at least two Facebook groups calling for the school system to reinstate the popular teacher. “He’s developed a reputation as being one of the most caring teachers in the school,” Mihet said.
Buell said the most disappointing part of the investigation is that he may not be in his classroom on Monday—the first day of the school year.
“This is the place where you will receive the most respect out of any place you’ll be all day. I love my kids. I take my job very seriously.”
- end of initial entry -
[LA notes: I believe Irv’s comment was posted, then somehow accidentally deleted. I’m reposting it now.]
Irv P. writes:
We truly live in a reign of FEAR.
This is one of those instances where a majority national action network is needed to protest against this kind of insanity.
Just think of the ripple effects a story like this has on other people who have to think long and hard before that say a word that doesn’t conform to liberal doctrine.
True, he MAY win in court, but the effects on him and his family are all negative and stressful. He is paying a heavy price for voicing an opinion.
The pressure that is brought to bear on people to prevent them from discussing controversial issues MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO STAND.
Tim W. writes:
Irv P. is correct. This is designed to frighten opponents of same-sex “marriage” out of speaking. Most people don’t want to have to go to court over something they say. They don’t want “controversy” to surround them. So even if they know they can win a First Amendment lawsuit, they’ll just keep quiet.
This case shows how totalitarian modern American liberalism has become. Did it ever cross Gov. Scott Walker’s mind to investigate the Facebook pages or Twitter feeds of state employees to see what they were saying about him or his proposals? And then to punish those specific individuals? Does the Tea Party browse social media looking for anti-Tea Party postings by public school teachers (and heaven knows there must be thousands of such postings) and then demand the teachers’ firing because Tea Party supporting students might feel frightened entering their classrooms? Of course they don’t.
This is truly something only a liberal mind can fathom. Check out this comment by the public school official who suspended the teacher:
He has (more than) 700 friends,” he said. “How private is that—really? Social media can be troubling if you don’t respect it and know that just because you think you are in a private realm—it’s not private.”
So they’re now applying the concept of “public accommodations” to speech. Speech is only private if just a few intimates hear it. Maybe it’s still okay to say you oppose same-sex “marriage” over the dinner table to family or close friends. But if you say it on a private message forum which is read by 700 people, you’ve crossed into the “public” realm and are no longer free to say what you want. At least if you’re a conservative, because we all know that a teacher who endorsed same-sex “marriage” and denounced those who disagree as “homophobes” would be in no danger of losing his job.
What an irony! Technology has been developed which allows people more easily to express their views to their fellow citizens. You can sit in your own home, on your own computer, on your own time and express your opinion about a controversial public issue. And the left tells us that because so many people were able to read it, your opinion ceased to be private and you can now be punished for holding those views. Only liberalism could turn devices designed to make free speech easier into an opportunity for censorship.
Lydia McGrew writes:
I noticed this in the article about the teacher being threatened with dismissal for comments opposing homosexual “marriage” (emphasis added):
“Just because you think it’s private, other people are viewing it,” Patton said, noting that the teacher’s Facebook page also contained numerous Bible passages.
That right there should give the teacher grounds for a religious discrimination lawsuit if he is fired, should it not? This administrator is treating it as somehow a bad thing and evidence that perhaps he is doing something wrong that his Facebook page contained numerous Bible passages!
It may be the most frightening line in the entire story.
LA replies:
He’s committed the crime of being in “public” while Christian.
Daniel S. writes:
That liberalism is ultimately totalitarian needs no more demonstration. The firing of a Christian teacher for privately voicing his opposition to homosexual “marriage” is quite telling. [LA replies: But is a Facebook post private?] The extrajudicial silencing of this teacher was done under the pretext that homosexual students might feel intimidated by remarks he had made outside the educational setting. Such a charge is ironic, considering it is not conservatives intimidating those who disagree with them, but liberals though actions such as this very firing who are seeking to intimidate those who would oppose the liberal agenda. I am reminded of the aftermath of the Giffords shooting earlier this year in Tuscon in which the liberal establishment accused Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and other conservatives of inciting hatred and violence, all the while they incited hatred against conservatives. Conservatives need to pick up this point and drive it home again and again: it is liberals that are using intimidation to silence opponents, and it is liberals inciting hatred against conservatives.
Lydia McGrew writes:
Since his lawyers are using a First Amendment defense (presumably based on the fact that the school is a public school and, under current jurisprudence, regarded as a state entity), should it matter legally whether he said it in public or not? I don’t know what the precedents are on this and whether the public/private distinction would add another layer of protection to his speech, but if First Amendment protections apply, they certainly apply to public discourse. No one thinks that the First Amendment applies only to things said in private.
August 20
Tim W. writes:
LA wrote: “But is a Facebook post private?”
This is why I raised the issue of “public accommodations” in my prior entry. In the 1960s Americans lost many of their property rights and their rights to freedom of association due to the public accommodations concept. We were told that we could only freely associate in a very limited setting, such as a church wedding or a dinner party thrown at one’s home. If we started up a private club, though, and had lots of members, then suddenly it became a public accommodation. We couldn’t discriminate in membership without facing consequences. Perhaps the First Amendment would protect such a club, but it would take an expensive legal fight to win such protection. And even then, the club might be banned from using a city park for a club picnic, or its members identified as “bigots” if they applied for a job. Recall all the nominees for federal posts who have had to resign memberships in all male hunting lodges and other things of that nature before they could be confirmed by the Senate.
More recently, religious freedom has come under attack in the name of fighting discrimination. Churches are still protected by the First Amendment from being forced to perform same-sex “marriages.” but Christian individuals often lose their religious liberty under the public accommodations concept. If a Christian opens a bakery, he must be willing to produce same-sex “wedding” cakes. By virtue of going into business, he is providing a public accommodation and must “accommdate” everyone, or at least everyone on liberalism’s preference list.
What the left seems to be doing with Facebook is to apply the public accommodations concept to speech. Free speech will from now on be limited to very private conversations. Speech that can be heard or read by, let’s say, a couple of hundred people will become “public speech” and monitored by the Political Correctness police. It will no longer be a private opinion but a public attack on homosexuals, minorities, immigrants, or whomever, and thus discrimination against a protected class.
The usual double standards will apply, which you correctly call a single standard. It’s fine for a woman nominee for a federal judgeship to belong to a women-only lawyers association, but horrendous for a man to belong to a men-only boating club. It’s fine to run a “gay matchmaking service” but a heterosexual matchmaking service must expand its listings to accommodate homosexuals. A Facebook entry endorsing same-sex “marriage” and calling those who disagree bigots and Bible-thumpers is fine, but woe to the individual who posts in opposition.
LA replies:
For more on the liberal double standard, go to “VFR articles arranged by topic,” open the Word document linked there (or, better, save it to your computer for future use), look for the heading, “The liberal double standard and how it is really a single standard,” and see the articles under that heading.
April 8, 2012
LA writes:
I just came upon this entry from last August, looked up Jerry Buel, and saw that he was reinstated in his job about a week after he was suspended. The story, in the Orlando Sentinel, indicates that the school authorities were mum about the reasons for the reinstatement.
Also, apart from the particular remarks that got him suspended, it appears that Buel is very outspoken about his religion and his intent to bring it into the classroom, and it’s not clear how, as a teacher in today’s secular public schools, he gets away with it:
On his school webpage, he wrote that he tries to “teach and lead my students as if Lake Co. Schools had hired Jesus Christ himself.”
On his class syllabus, he also offers this warning to students: “I teach God’s truth, I make very few compromises. If you believe you may have a problem with that, get your schedule changed, ‘cause I ain’t changing!” On a separate document, he also said the classroom was his “mission field.”
Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 19, 2011 01:11 PM | Send