Extremely Lame

A court in Florida has outlawed a school board’s unconstitutional censorship of messages promoting equal rights for the LGBT community. Heather Gillman, a high school student sued the principal of Ponce de Leon High School and the Holmes County School Board for violations of her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

At first, I was a bit hesitant at the ruling despite my agreeing with it, as it could have the opposite side doing some pretty heinous things all in the name of free speech. However, after giving it some thought, they too have the right to say what they want if they’re subjected to the same limits (not disrupting class, not promoting anything illegal, etc). That’s the rational part of me thinking. After reading about the principal’s conduct during the affair in the actual lawsuit (.pdf) and just what kinds of things were banned, I think he’s getting his just desserts.

The case began when a student was harassed by some other students for being a lesbian. She went to a teacher’s aide to report it and was called to the principal’s office at the end of the day. Upon receiving confirmation from the student that she was, indeed, a lesbian, the principal told her that she shouldn’t be a lesbian and she shouldn’t tell others that she’s a lesbian because, and I quote, “‘gay pride’ was a disgrace to the school.”

Word of this admonition got out, and several students started marking up their folders, arms, and other items with “GP” or “Gay Pride.” There was some discussion of organizing a peaceful walk-out during a “morality assembly” that never took place. Shortly after this, the principal called in a few of the students, including Heather Gillmore’s cousin and grilled them for a list of names of gay people at the school and, again, taking time out of his busy schedule to nobly protect these students by telling them that being gay wasn’t right and that it was against the Bible. Furthermore, it would warrant a suspension.

A few days later, a handful of students, including Heather’s cousin, received a five day suspension for wearing rainbow belts and other symbols that showed their support of fair treatment for the LGBT community. The principal explained that they were being suspended for “(1) belonging to a ’secret society’, (2) threatening to walk out of the assembly, and (3) disrupting the school by being part of a gay protest.”

I don’t know about you, but any secret society that prominantly displays their alllegiance/membership of said secret society has got to be like the worst secret society ever. It ain’t real secret if you tell everyone about it!

A couple days after the suspension, Heather wore a rainbow belt and a shirt saying “I support gays” to show solidarity for her cousin and to show her support of treating gays and lesbians fairly and equally. She wore the belt for the rest of the week, it did not cause a disruption, and she was not disciplined.

So, it’s already determined that this is not a secret society, and Heather’s display proves that it is not disruptive, so the only reason they were suspended was for their participation in a walk-out that did not actually occur.

So, Heather and her cousin then sent a letter to the school board for clarification about what would and would not be acceptable to use to display support for gays and lesbians, including the typical pink triangles and rainbow flags, but also the horrid, disgusting phrases like, “Gay? Fine by me!” and “I support equal marriage rights.” Terrible. Simply terrible I tell you.

Naturally, the school board rejected all of these symbols and phrases because they would be “likely disruptive and interfere with the educational process.” Never mind that Heather wore things exactly like this and chaos did not ensue. Additionally, the symbols were disalllowed because they “indicated membership in an ‘illegal organization’.” Yeah, the school board is suggesting that the rainbow pride flag and the pink triangle are gang symbols. Note that other controversial things such as the Confederate flag were allowed by this principal under the auspices of Free Speech.

Fortunately, the U.S. District judge had a bit of common sense and struck this nonsense down.

But oh the comments in the news sites lamenting this! Just look at them. Actually, I got to be honest. They aren’t nearly as bad as the comments of people on articles regarding something like an Intelligent Design teaching being shot down.