I could see both sides of this. On the one hand, firing someone for not bowing to the demands of a minor is a bit ridiculous. That does't even include the ridiculousness of letting a minor make permanent life decisions. At the very least the parents and school need to be tapping the breaks when it comes to this kid.

OTOH, I don't think that even the most hateful, mean-spirited, and bigoted speech should be able to be spouted without consequence. If I say the N word in south Dallas I will probably be physically punished, and most everyone would think I deserved it. There are plenty of documented cases of kids or adults bullying kids until the kid commits suicide. They actually had to make new laws about it. So I definitely think speech can be directly harmful.

Now lets say you have a worldview that using the "wrong" pronoun is as bad as using the N-word. Couple that to the fact that transgender individuals have crazy high rates of suicide, which you think is entirely due to social prejudice. It's not a big leap to think that people willfully using the "wrong" pronoun may damage a kid's mental health and raise their risk of suicide. Especially when such "attacks" come from an authority figure that the child can't avoid. In this worldview, the teacher is constantly attacking a mentally vulnerable child.

Personally I agree with the other posters in this thread. However, I could see how a group of people that have accepted this worldview might think this is an appropriate and even good response

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So I definitely think speech can be directly harmful.

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Absolutely agree with this, as you gave a great example of bullying. I think the best way to address harmful speech is through reason and increasing empathy, not coercion. I certainly do not buy into the myth that "sticks and stone may break my bones, but words can never hurt me".

This is the written account of Adam's family line. When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them "Mankind" when they were created.
Genesis 5:1-2 NIV
https://bible.com/bible/111/gen.5.1-2.NIV

I am curious about his thoughts about those on this board who explicitly call for oppression and mistreatment of those in the lgbt community.

Freedom of speech is way overrated.

kurt vonnegut said:

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Seamaster said:

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https://www.christianpost.com/news/christian-teacher-fired-not-using-male-pronouns-female-student-identifies-transgender.html

I sure hope he and others like him sue and this sort of thing makes its way to the Supreme Court.

Compelled speech is a vicious attack on freedom.

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The problem I have with your posts at the moment is that I have a hard time sympathizing with anything you post on account of the fact that your posts have a distinct lack of acknowledgment that gay and trans people are regularly abused, shunned, and discriminated against by Christians.

I could probably get behind some of what you are saying on this particular story. But all I hear is " Waaa! Waaa! Christians are so persecuted. No one else in this country or in history has ever been as persecuted as us!" And sometimes Christians are persecuted, so it's a shame we aren't able to connect in those cases.

You care about injustice against Christians. I don't think you give a flying **** about anyone else. At least, that's what I've discerned from my limited exposure to you on this forum.

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An inability to separate the argument from the person making is a dangerous road to go down. If seamaster said murdering Christians for not going to pride parades is bad would you post this same thing?

AGC said:

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PacifistAg said:

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I am curious about his thoughts about those on this board who explicitly call for oppression and mistreatment of those in the lgbt community.

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You should be able to engage with an argument without expecting perfect character or consistency from the person making it. He's not Jesus after all and hypocrisy doesn't invalidate the point he's making.

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I'm not saying it invalidates his point. If you read my first response, you'd see I agree with him on freedom of speech. I was responding to kurts's post. I'm not expecting perfect character. I merely understand the point kurt was making as well.

"Freedom of speech" is an inalienable right recognized and specified in the US Constitution which points out that "Congress [government] shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech".

It seems it is either often forgotten or misunderstood that another person or a group of people or even an employer cannot infringe on this right. An employer can absolutely restrict what you can and cannot say and you can choose whether or not to work for that employer. This happens all the time. For example, you can't tell customers to "eff off" and expect to keep your job. You can't share proprietary information with your employer's competition and expect to keep your job.

Actions have consequences and "freedom of speech" is not some magical cloak that protects people from the consequences of what they say.

This story has a couple of interesting angles.

One is the "was this teacher's firing right/correct/fair" question. We can all argue the points and agree or disagree about this question, but while it may be a profitable discussion to have given the increasing relevance of the topic, ultimately it doesn't have much bearing on the second angle.

I've already established that for a typical employer there is no such thing as violating an employee's right to free speech, but this isn't a typical employer. It is a locally, state, and federally funded government employer which means there may be a compelling legal case on behalf of the teacher.

Obviously the government, as an employer, has to be able to have standards for the behavior of its employees (teachers can't just go around swearing and insulting students without repercussion), and this has plenty of precedent.

The last thing I found interesting was that in reading this story from another source it seems the teacher is very involved with the school (he also coaches and drives a school bus), is very well respected among students and parents, and made a very decent attempt to resolve this situation himself without violating his own conscience (he agreed to call the female student by her new male name, but would not refer to her with male pronouns; he didn't refer to her with female pronouns either, he just tried to use her new name only).

It is very unfortunate that this situation couldn't be mediated better and that a good teacher like this had to lose his job. The school caved to the parents and likely to the thought of a potential lawsuit given today's climate of transgender activism and the unrelenting negative press that follows.

I'm not sure why the parents decided to push for a good teacher to lose his job because he would not use masculine pronouns when referring to their daughter in a class that meets for 55 minutes a day, but - as a parent myself - I cannot fathom the behavior of parents not only allowing a fourteen year old child to "change genders", but also to force the acceptance of that change onto everyone else no matter what everyone else may believe. I don't think we're dealing with two parents of the year here.

kurt vonnegut said:

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AGC said:

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An inability to separate the argument from the person making is a dangerous road to go down. If seamaster said murdering Christians for not going to pride parades is bad would you post this same thing?

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I have zero problems in recognizing an argument for the immorality of murdering Christians for not going to pride parades. I also have zero problems in recognizing the danger of limiting this teachers speech / or forcing his speech to conform to a conflicting standard. I simply have a problem engaging with a person who, as far as I can tell, only believes these rights and values apply to heterosexual Christians.

If I said that violence against whites is bad, it would be easy for you to agree with me. If I believed that whites are the only race deserving of protection from violence, how sympathetic are you going to be to my call to end white violence?

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I think this response is great in tone and substance. It adequately conveys the point without discussing his character.

You may not like seamaster but the hot topic for him has a lot of spillover - religious exercise, free speech, scientific inquiry and dogma, culture, parenting, etc. He may not frame it well but there is a lot to consider.

Seamaster said:

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"The problem I have with your posts at the moment is that I have a hard time sympathizing with anything you post on account of the fact that your posts have a distinct lack of acknowledgment that gay and trans people are regularly abused, shunned, and discriminated against by Christians. "

Really?

Please tell me exactly how gays and trans people are regularly abused, shunned and discriminated against by Christians. Please. Apparently I am really unaware of this huge problem.

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It really is incredible that out of his entire post addressing the issues with your posting style, THIS is what you focus on. You've just completely made his entire point for him.

Average Guy said:

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Dr. Watson said:

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Seamaster said:

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"The problem I have with your posts at the moment is that I have a hard time sympathizing with anything you post on account of the fact that your posts have a distinct lack of acknowledgment that gay and trans people are regularly abused, shunned, and discriminated against by Christians. "

Really?

Please tell me exactly how gays and trans people are regularly abused, shunned and discriminated against by Christians. Please. Apparently I am really unaware of this huge problem.

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It really is incredible that out of his entire post addressing the issues with your posting style, THIS is what you focus on. You've just completely made his entire point for him.

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Was there really more to "his entire post" than what Seamaster focused on? 3 paragraphs:

1. the one Seamaster quoted
2. says that Seamaster just want to talk about persecution of Christians
3. Seamaster doesn't care about anyone else, presumably meaing the victims of Christians referenced in paragraph one.

No. Seamaster focused on the right part. For the record, I'd like to know what the answer to his question is.

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There's a whole thread dedicated to it. And it really is amazing that some Christians are so narrowly focused they can't see the issues beyond "Christian persecution."

Average Guy said:

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Dr. Watson said:

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Average Guy said:

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Dr. Watson said:

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Seamaster said:

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"The problem I have with your posts at the moment is that I have a hard time sympathizing with anything you post on account of the fact that your posts have a distinct lack of acknowledgment that gay and trans people are regularly abused, shunned, and discriminated against by Christians. "

Really?

Please tell me exactly how gays and trans people are regularly abused, shunned and discriminated against by Christians. Please. Apparently I am really unaware of this huge problem.

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It really is incredible that out of his entire post addressing the issues with your posting style, THIS is what you focus on. You've just completely made his entire point for him.

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Was there really more to "his entire post" than what Seamaster focused on? 3 paragraphs:

1. the one Seamaster quoted
2. says that Seamaster just want to talk about persecution of Christians
3. Seamaster doesn't care about anyone else, presumably meaing the victims of Christians referenced in paragraph one.

No. Seamaster focused on the right part. For the record, I'd like to know what the answer to his question is.

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There's a whole thread dedicated to it. And it really is amazing that some Christians are so narrowly focused they can't see the issues beyond "Christian persecution."

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Just because people don't want to talk about what you want them to talk about doesn't mean they don't see other things. Christian persecution is a big deal, particularly if one happens to be Christian and doesn't want to lose his job because he won't use the right pronouns. Surely Christians can be forgiven for obsessing a little bit about that instead of focusing on things that you think are more important.

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He was specifically asked about these other issues and currently refuses to address any of them. It's rather sad.

Speaking of freedom of speech, it seems, rather predictably, that some on this board want to complain to the moderator when their views are challenged and beg for threads to be deleted.

So I can be directly accused of something (ignoring the persecution of gay persons by evil Christians) and when I defend myself and ask about that complaint, the complainers complain and the thread gets deleted.

Typical progressive playbook being played on TexAgs.

That's the last dollar TexAgs ever gets from me and this will likely be the last time I ever post on TexAgs at all.

Here's the good news: more time to focus on what really matters - family, faith, neighbors, friends, & community.

Progressives ruin everything they touch. Even TexAgs.

I didn't complain about any of your 4,000 anti-lgbt threads. Not sure why that one was deleted as I've seen much worse get to hang around forever.

Seamaster said:

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Speaking of freedom of speech, it seems, rather predictably, that some on this board want to complain to the moderator when their views are challenged and beg for threads to be deleted.

So I can be directly accused of something (ignoring the persecution of gay persons by evil Christians) and when I defend myself and ask about that complaint, the complainers complain and the thread gets deleted.

Typical progressive playbook being played on TexAgs.

That's the last dollar TexAgs ever gets from me and this will likely be the last time I ever post on TexAgs at all.

Here's the good news: more time to focus on what really matters - family, faith, neighbors, friends, & community.

Progressives ruin everything they touch. Even TexAgs.

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First of all, TexAgs has nothing to do with freedom of speech. Private entities have no obligation to facilitate your speech. Second, do you know exactly why your thread was deleted? Did staff tell you? The only threads I ever see get deleted here are typically when it becomes clear that a message went out on some Discord chat and a certain group of posters begin flocking to the thread. I did notice that seemed to be happening on that thread. Of course, I could be wrong and it could have been for some other reason.

Perhaps it isn't "progressives" who are to blame, but those who love to come here and explicitly state how they believe certain groups should be oppressed, imprisoned, sent to reeducation camps, etc.

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compelled speech signals the end of a free society.

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Yeah not sure why the boogeyman progressives get the blame when the group you mention has a history of getting threads torched. Especially the ones about the Big Gay Menace.

I assume it's due to complains from those easily offended and militant in making complaints because it's happened previously and Marco and a few others, previously publicly said they were going to complain and asked others to do likewise.

I'll ask Staff, however, and if I am wrong I'll let y'all know.

Frok said:

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compelled speech signals the end of a free society.

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I agree: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/09/26/black-student-refused-recite-pledge-allegiance-challenging-texas-law-requiring-it/?utm_term=.db8d27c5d6c0

Seamaster said:

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I assume it's due to complains from those easily offended and militant in making complaints because it's happened previously and Marco and a few others, previously publicly said they were going to complain and asked others to do likewise.

I'll ask Staff, however, and if I am wrong I'll let y'all know.

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Uh, the bolded section certainly isn't restricted to "progressives". See: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/10/us/gay-teachers-wife-texas.html

Beer Baron.

That's because I am willing to grant that maybe my perception of why the thread was deleted was wrong.

Don't worry. If I was right you'll never hear from me again.