Democrats push for school quotas and speech codes in defense bill amendment

Washington D.C. lawyer Hans Bader explains at College Insurrection blog.

Excerpt:

Suing schools and colleges has nothing to do with supporting our troops.

But that didn’t stop Senators from seeking to add an amendment, SA 3215, to the 2013 Defense Authorization bill on Thursday, containing provisions that would overturn two Supreme Court rulings in order to promote such lawsuits. The amendment, proposed by Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Bernie Sanders (Vt.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), would dramatically expand the reach of two federal statutes, Title VI and Title IX, to allow colleges, schools, and recipients of federal funds to be sued for “disparate impact.”

Disparate impact is what people call school policies that have no motive to discriminate, but end up affecting some groups more than others. For example, standardized tests for mathematics have nothing to do with race, but some racial groups perform better than others. The Democrats think that this is grounds for a lawsuit, apparently.

More:

The amendment, backed by trial lawyers, would also allow colleges, schools, and other institutions to be sued for unlimited punitive damages.

[...]The specter of liability for disparate impact could make schools get rid of standardized tests designed to ensure that students are really learning, and detect failing schools, since all but the easiest standardized tests arguably have a racially “disparate impact.”

It could also result in racial quotas in school discipline. The Obama Administration has alreadypressured some school districts to adopt de facto racial quotas in school discipline (school districts are reluctant to defy the Administration’s legally-dubious demands lest it cut off their federal funds), requiring even liberal school districts that already bend over backwards not to suspend disruptive black students to cut their suspension rates, and spend millions of dollars to comply with bureaucratic dictates imposed by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, where I used to work.

[...]Expanding Title VI liability and punitive damages could also lead to more campus speech codes, as colleges, terrified of racial harassment liability under Title VI, clamp down on any speech that might conceivably contribute to what is perceived as a racially hostile learning environment.

Hans explains why these laws cause schools and universities to create “speech codes”:

But schools persist in imposing overbroad harassment policies, both because they would rather be sued for First Amendment violations than for racial or sexual harassment… and because private colleges are not directly subject to the First Amendment at all, but can be sued for racial and sexual harassment.

[...][T]o avoid liability, private colleges in particular may clamp down on campus speech about racial and sexual issues like affirmative action and feminism, lest such speech provide potential “building blocks” of a hostile environment claim under the “totality of circumstances” test.

Trial lawyers are one of the groups that donate a lot of money to Democrats, so naturally they will be happy with any law that makes more business for them.

 

Filed under: News, Affirmative Action, Disparate Impact, Education, Fascism, Feminism, Harassment, Quotas, Racial Harassment, Racism, Sexism, Sexual Harassment, Speech Code

Gay rights activists vandalize church for posting pro-marriage sign

Anti-marriage gay activists vandalize church

From the Newcastle Herald (Australia). (H/T Bill Muehlenberg)

Excerpt:

Vandals attacked Wallsend Presbyterian Church last night in response to a message criticising same-sex marriage displayed on the building’s outside notice board.

The church on Nelson Street had updated its message board last week to read “Even tradies know you need both male and female joints to make a marriage”.

The front of the 1867 building, which recently received a $12,000 makeover, was defaced with messages such as ‘‘sexuality is not a choice’’ and ‘‘love thy neighbour not hate gays’’.

Reverend Dr Ian Copland said the sign was a play on words and he wanted people to talk about the issue being raised in federal parliament.

He said he has no regrets despite the outcome.

‘‘This is not going to stop me,’’ he said.

Two bills to legalise same-sex marriage were introduced in Federal Parliament this week.

‘‘It’s obviously a reaction to the sign but I have no malice towards the vandals,’’ Rev Copland said.

‘‘It only takes one or two cowards you can’t blame the whole homosexual community. That would be wrong.’’

This is not the first time the church has been attacked regarding its stance on same-sex marriage.

The signboard was vandalised about six months ago when the reverend posted a similar message.

Don’t expect to see this story plastered on all the newspapers in the world for six months. It doesn’t fit the mainstream media’s secular leftist worldview.

Bill writes:

So this is how the tolerant brigade makes its case: by attacking and defacing and causing damage to a church. Yep, we sure do love how you guys do business. All that love and tolerance is just oozing out here. But if this were not bad enough, look closely at that photo again.

Did you see one of the bits of graffiti? It says this: “Tolerance is a virtue”. I kid you not. Look at it again! Don’t you just love how these guys demonstrate all their wonderful love of tolerance? They bend over backwards trying to be the most intolerant bunch in the country. And they are succeeding just fine.

As I mentioned, no commentary is really needed here. Just soak in the irony, the duplicity, the double standards and the hypocrisy. I love it when these guys make our case for us. I could never have done such a good enough job to demonstrate all this. So they kindly go and do it for me.

Thanks guys. Keep it up. We expect to see even more such cases of love, acceptance and tolerance in the near future. We know full well how you operate, and we look forward to more expressions of tolerance.

Click here for a sampling of anti-marriage vandalism, violence and harassment from anti-Prop 8 gay activists.

Please note: comments to this post will be filtered based on Obama’s law restricting free speech on controversial issues.

Filed under: News, Australia, Bigotry, Church, Gay Activism, Graffiti, Harassment, Hate, Intolerance, Newcastle, Vandalism, Violence, Wallsend Presbyterian Church

How the left uses “bullying” to restrict free speech that offends them

From Hans Bader at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Full text: (links removed)

A school superintendant has labeled a column in a school newspaper thatcriticized homosexuality as “bullying.” (The Shawano High School newspaper decided to run dueling student opinion pieces on whether same-sex couples should be able to adopt children; the student article that was labeled as “bullying” answered the question “no.” The school district also publicly apologized for the column, and said that it is “taking steps to prevent items of this nature from happening in the future.”)

Whatever the wisdom (or lack thereof) of featuring something like that in a school newspaper, it seems strange to argue that a viewpoint in a student newspaper is “bullying.” (The Shawano School District’s bullying policy provides that “bullying” may lead to “warning, suspension,” “expulsion,” etc.) A conservative Christian who thought that homosexuality was immoral successfully challenged a school “harassment” code that punished students with such viewpoints in Saxe v. State College Area School District(2001), a case in which a federal appeals court ruled that there is no “harassment” exception to the First Amendment for speech which offends members of minority groups. Speech cannot be banned simply by labeling it as violence, either: for example, in Bauer v.Sampson, another federal appeals court ruled that a campus newspaper’s illustration depicting a college official’s imaginary death was protected by the First Amendment, even though the college declared it a violation of its policy against “workplace violence.”

But schools and anti-bullying activists have adopted incredibly overbroad definitions of bullying. The anti-bullying website NoBully.com, and schools like Fox Hill and Alvarado Elementary, define even “eye rolling” and other expressions of displeasure or hostility as bullying, even though doing so raises First Amendment problems.

The Obama administration claims bullying is an “epidemic” and a “pandemic.” But in reality, bullying and violence have steadily gone down in the nation’s schools, as studies funded by the Justice Department have shown. The Obama administration’s StopBullying.gov website defines a vast array of speech and conduct as bullying: it classifies “teasing” as a form of “bullying,” and “rude” or “hurtful” “text messages” as “cyberbullying.” Since “creating web sites” that “make fun of others” also is deemed “cyberbullying,” conservative websites that poke fun at the president are presumably guilty of cyberbullying under this strange definition. (Law professors such as UCLA’s Eugene Volokh have criticized bills by liberal lawmakers like Congresswoman Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) that would ban some criticism of politicians as cyberbullying.)

It’s very important to understand what liberals mean when they say “bullying” and how they use it to silence those who might offend them. It’s using government power to force individuals to accept the morality of the state. There’s a word for that.

Filed under: News, Barack Obama, Bully, Bullying, Democrat Party, Department of Education, Disagreement, Education, Fascism, First Amendment, Free Speech, Freedom of Speech, Gay Activism, Harassment, Homosexuality, Leftism, Moral Relativism, Morality, Nanny State, Offended, Political Correctness, Public School, Schools, Secular Left, Secularism, Stop Bullying

Frank Turek asks: how would same-sex marriage affect society?

His latest post from Cross-Examined  explores the consequences of legalizing same-sex marriage on children and society.

Excerpt:

The law is a great teacher, and same sex marriage will teach future generations that marriage is not about children but about coupling. When marriage becomes nothing more than coupling, fewer people will get married to have children.

So what? People will still have children, of course, but many more of them out-of wedlock. That’s a disaster for everyone. Children will be hurt because illegitimate parents (there are no illegitimate children) often never form a family, and those that “shack up” break up at a rate two to three times that of married parents. Society will be hurt because illegitimacy starts a chain of negative effects that fall like dominoes—illegitimacy leads to poverty, crime, and higher welfare costs which lead to bigger government, higher taxes, and a slower economy.

Are these just the hysterical cries of an alarmist? No. We can see the connection between same-sex marriage and illegitimacy in Scandinavian countries. Norway, for example, has had de-facto same-sex marriage since the early nineties. In Nordland,the most liberal county of Norway, where they fly “gay” rainbow flags over their churches, out-of-wedlock births have soared—more than 80percent of women giving birth for the first time, and nearly 70 percent of allchildren, are born out of wedlock! Across all of Norway, illegitimacy rose from 39 percent to 50 percent in the first decade of same-sex marriage.

Anthropologist Stanley Kurtz writes,“When we look at Nordland and Nord-Troendelag — the Vermont and Massachusetts of Norway — we are peering as far as we can into the future of marriage in a world where gay marriage is almost totally accepted. What we see is a place where marriage itself has almost totally disappeared.” He asserts that “Scandinavian gay marriage has driven home the message that marriage itself is outdated, and that virtually any family form, including out-of-wedlock parenthood, is acceptable.” But it’s not just Norway. Blankenhorn reports this same trend in other countries. International surveys show that same-sex marriage and the erosion of traditional marriage tend to go together. Traditional marriage is weakest and illegitimacy strongest wherever same-sex marriage is legal. 

You might say, “Correlation doesn’t always indicate causation!” Yes, but often it does. Is there any doubt that liberalizing marriage laws impacts society for the worse? You need look no further than the last 40 years of no-fault divorce laws in the United States (family disintegration destroys lives and now costs taxpayers $112 billion per year!).

No-fault divorce laws began in one state, California, and then spread to rest of the country. Those liberalized divorce laws helped change our attitudes and behaviors about the permanence of marriage. There’s no question that liberalized marriage laws will help change our attitudes and behaviors about the purpose of marriage. The law is a great teacher, and if same-sex marriage advocates have their way, children will be expelled from the lesson on marriage.

These are things that Christians need to know to intelligently discuss same-sex marriage. Most of his facts are things that I’ve blogged about before, but it helps to have it all in one place. The only concern I have is that you cannot even talk about the issue using facts any more – because you get shut down.

Related posts

• Gay manager at Cisco Systems gets Dr. Frank Turek fired
• Wayne Grudem defends what the Bible says about same-sex marriage
• Michael Brown and Eric Smaw debate: should same-sex marriage be legal?
• How would allowing gays to marry affect your life?
• Obama administration believes that traditional marriage is unconstitutional
• What causes homosexuality? Is there a gay gene?
• Why do people oppose same-sex marriage?
• Republicans hire top lawyer to defend traditional marriage against Democrats
• California Democrats mandate gay history in public schools
• Brown University students attack pro-marriage sign at demonstration
• Queen’s University feminist professor says that polygamy should be permitted
• Obama administration believes that traditional marriage is unconstitutional
• Frank Turek lists ten alleged facts about same-sex marriage
• Which family configuration is best for raising children?
• Obama praises non-traditional families on National Family Day
• UK Equalities Minister introduces law allowing gays to marry in churches
• Christian business owners found guilty for disagreeing with homosexuality
• Belgian archbishop targeted by gay activists over AIDS remarks
• Christian couple barred from having foster children
• Gay federal judge rules traditional marriage unconstitutional in California
• Christian student loses case with Eastern Michigan University
• Ireland considers bill to criminalize dissent from same-sex civil unions
• Catholic Charities closes adoption agency due to same-sex marriage law
• Do Democrats like Chai Feldblum believe in religious liberty?
• Do Democrats like Martha Coakley believe in religious liberty?
• How Harriet Harman’s Equality Bill will impact religious liberty
• Christianity under fire from secular governments in San Francisco and Quebec
• The persecution of a Catholic Bishop (at Blazing Cat Fur)
• The persecution of Rev. Stephen Boissoin (at Ezra Levant)
• The persecution of Catholic Insight magazine (at Ezra Levant)
• The persecution of Christian businessman Scott Brockie (at The Interim)
• Tactics and talking points for defending traditional marriage
• What happens when same-sex marriage conflicts with religious liberty?
• Can a person disagree without being hateful or inciting violence?

Filed under: Commentary, Business, Censorship, Christianity, Conscience, Death Threat, Discrimination, Equality, Fascism, Frank Turek, Gay Activism, Gay Agenda, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Harassment, Hate Crime, Hate Speech, Homosexuality, Human Rights, Intimidation, Marriage, Prop 8, Proposition 8, Religious Liberty, Same-Sex Marriage, Socialism, Vandalism, Violence

Gay manager at Cisco Systems gets Dr. Frank Turek fired

Dr. Mike Adams explains how a gay manager at Cisco Systems got Dr. Frank Turek fired for opposing same-sex marriage. Adams explains what happened in a letter addressed to the President of Cisco.

Excerpt:

I want to bring to your attention a recent decision made by your HR team that I think does not reflect your leadership of Cisco. Dr. Frank Turek was fired as a vendor for his political and religious views, even though those views were never mentioned or expressed during his work at Cisco.

[...]In 2008, Dr. Turek was hired by Cisco to design and conduct a leadership and teambuilding program for about fifty managers with your Remote Operations Services team. The program took about a year to conduct, during which he also conducted similar sessions for another business unit within Cisco. That training earned such high marks that in 2010 he was asked to design a similar program for about 200 managers within Global Technical Services. Ten separate eight-hour sessions were scheduled.

The morning after completing the seventh session earlier this year, a manager in that session —who was one of the better students in that class—phoned in a complaint. It had nothing to do with content of the course or how it was conducted. In fact, the manager commented that the course was “excellent” as did most who participated. His complaint regarded Dr. Turek’s political and religious views that were never mentioned during class, but that the manager learned by “googling” Dr. Turek after class.

The manager identified himself as gay and was upset that Dr. Turek had written this book providing evidence that maintaining our current marriage laws would be best for the country. Although the manager didn’t read the book, he said that the author’s view was inconsistent with “Cisco values” and could not be tolerated. (Dr. Turek is aware of this because he was in the room when his call came in.) The manager then contacted an experienced HR professional at Cisco who had Dr. Turek fired that day without ever speaking to him. The HR professional also commended the manager for “outing” Dr. Turek.

This firing had nothing to do with course content—the program earned very high marks from participants. It had nothing to do with budget constraints—the original contract was paid in full recently. A man was fired simply because of his personal political and religious beliefs—beliefs that are undoubtedly shared by thousands of your very large and diverse workforce.

Chastity vs sexual immorality

Let me tell you about the difference between chastity and sexual immorality. In my life, I have decided to be chaste, and what I have found is that there is a constant stream of negative judgments coming from the culture, the education system, and so forth disapproving of my decision to be chaste. But you will never see me trying to use the law to censor and coerce people who disagree with me. That is because I know that chastity is a virtue, and that chastity is necessary for a stable marriage – strictly on the peer-reviewed research.

No amount of disagreement from anti-chastity activists will make me feel bad about what I have decided to do, because I have the facts. I am not offended by incorrect views because it’s a factual question, and I’m right. And I also don’t want other people who disagree with me to celebrate my views, because they don’t hold my views. And I don’t mind that they disagree with me – my Christian worldview has a place for tolerance. Even God himself allows people to rebel against him – he doesn’t swoop down on sinners and demand obedience. He lets people decide for themselves. I want the right to voice my disagreement with others – I would not force anyone to agree with me and celebrate my views against their own will.

I think we can all see how sexual immorality is different from chastity. When people do something wrong that they know is wrong, they have a different response to being judged. Instead of ignoring the judgment as I do, they try to censor, coerce and overpower those who disagree with them. This can include the use of courts or even the use of force. The feeling of being offended is so strong for some sexually immoral people that any concerns about tolerating diverse opinions, or permitting disagreement goes out the window. Even to hear the words of disagreement is sometimes too much for a person in rebellion.

Consider this passage from Matthew 14:1-2:

Matthew 14:1-12:

¹ At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus,

²and he said to his attendants, “This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead! That is why miraculous powers are at work in him.”

³ Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife,

⁴ for John had been saying to him: “It is not lawful for you to have her.”

⁵ Herod wanted to kill John, but he was afraid of the people, because they considered John a prophet.

⁶ On Herod’s birthday the daughter of Herodias danced for the guests and pleased Herod so much

⁷ that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked.

⁸ Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.”

⁹ The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he ordered that her request be granted

¹⁰ and had John beheaded in the prison.

¹¹ His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who carried it to her mother.

¹² John’s disciples came and took his body and buried it. Then they went and told Jesus.

Notice that this coercion can happen with all kinds of sexual immorality – in this case, incest. The desire to not be judged about the means of pursuing pleasure is strong. No one wants to hear about the potential harm they are causing. They just want to do it, and you just need to shut up and affirm them in their self-indulgence. Celebrate Anthony Weiner. Celebrate Bill Clinton. Celebrate Tiger Woods. Celebrate Elliot Spitzer. Celebrate Arnold Schwarzenegger. Celebrate John Edwards. OR ELSE. Very few people are brave enough to talk about the victims of this adult self-indulgence. And those who do will be taken under fire for it.

Same-sex marriage and coercion

And that leads me to the question that gay activists often ask supporters of traditional marriage: “how would allowing same-sex marriage hurt your marriage?”. And now we know the answer. Same-sex marriage would likely,  criminalize free speech that promotes traditional marriage over same-sex marriage, as it has in other countries with same-sex marriage, such as Canada. If you are a working husband, and you are responsible for a family, you will be under a constant threat of termination should your pro-marriage views become known to your colleagues and supervisors. Also, if you teach you children to favor traditional marriage, you may be persecuted by the state.

I would like to be able to provide for my family if I choose to marry, and I would like my children to favor traditional marriage over cohabitation, or any other arrangement, because traditional marriage is best for children who need a stable environment with two loving biological parents (if possible). But if it becomes the law that my view is “offensive” and “discriminatory”, then that would affect my marriage. Sometimes, I am very glad that I am not married, because getting married in a society that is offended by marriage takes a lot of courage. It seems to me that many Christians, especially the uninformed emotional ones who would rather read vampire fiction and Dan Brown than peer-reviewed research, prefer to redefine Christianity to mean “affirming destructive behavior so that you feel good and more people like you”.

Let Dr. Turek’s story be a lesson to all of you who prefer traditional marriage. Don’t allow your opinions on marriage to be linked to your true identity, because some sexually immoral people will try to separate you from your livelihood if they can. It’s no longer safe to express a preference for traditional marriage in this society. If you do it, you are taking chances. Just look at the vandalism and stalking of Prop 8 supporters. If you want children to grow up with a mother and a father in this society, then you are a marked target to those who put adult hedonism above the rights of children – including many Christians who enjoy singing and schmoozing in the church. Just this week I got an anguished e-mail from someone who blogs under his real name who is now in the cross-hairs for expressing his preference for traditional marriage in public.

Note: Comments to this post will be strictly filtered in accordance with legislation passed by the Obama administration limiting the free discussion of sexual morality, which many liberal Christians voted for in 2008.

Related posts

• Wayne Grudem defends what the Bible says about same-sex marriage
• Michael Brown and Eric Smaw debate: should same-sex marriage be legal?
• How would allowing gays to marry affect your life?
• Obama administration believes that traditional marriage is unconstitutional
• What causes homosexuality? Is there a gay gene?
• Why do people oppose same-sex marriage?
• Republicans hire top lawyer to defend traditional marriage against Democrats
• California Democrats mandate gay history in public schools
• Brown University students attack pro-marriage sign at demonstration
• Queen’s University feminist professor says that polygamy should be permitted
• Obama administration believes that traditional marriage is unconstitutional
• Frank Turek lists ten alleged facts about same-sex marriage
• Which family configuration is best for raising children?
• Obama praises non-traditional families on National Family Day
• UK Equalities Minister introduces law allowing gays to marry in churches
• Christian business owners found guilty for disagreeing with homosexuality
• Belgian archbishop targeted by gay activists over AIDS remarks
• Christian couple barred from having foster children
• Gay federal judge rules traditional marriage unconstitutional in California
• Christian student loses case with Eastern Michigan University
• Ireland considers bill to criminalize dissent from same-sex civil unions
• Catholic Charities closes adoption agency due to same-sex marriage law
• Do Democrats like Chai Feldblum believe in religious liberty?
• Do Democrats like Martha Coakley believe in religious liberty?
• How Harriet Harman’s Equality Bill will impact religious liberty
• Christianity under fire from secular governments in San Francisco and Quebec
• The persecution of a Catholic Bishop (at Blazing Cat Fur)
• The persecution of Rev. Stephen Boissoin (at Ezra Levant)
• The persecution of Catholic Insight magazine (at Ezra Levant)
• The persecution of Christian businessman Scott Brockie (at The Interim)
• Tactics and talking points for defending traditional marriage
• What happens when same-sex marriage conflicts with religious liberty?
• Can a person disagree without being hateful or inciting violence?

Filed under: Commentary, Business, Censorship, Christianity, Cisco, Cisco Systems, Conscience, Death Threat, Discrimination, Dr. Frank Turek, Equality, Fascism, Frank Turek, Gay Activism, Gay Agenda, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Harassment, Hate Crime, Hate Speech, Homosexuality, Human Rights, Intimidation, Marriage, Prop 8, Proposition 8, Religious Liberty, Same-Sex Marriage, Socialism, Vandalism, Violence