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> The issue is not with taking a position, it's with suppressing opposition to that position. If that is the case, then allowing parents to teach opposing view

> The issue is not with taking a position, it's with suppressing opposition to that position. If that is the case, then allowing parents to teach opposing viewpoints should be a good thing, right? Saying parents can't teach such viewpoints would be suppressing opposition, right? > I could write a persuasive paper against gay marriage. I could campaign against gay rights in the Republican club. If you wore a T-shirt that said "Aristotle said the fundamental union of society is between man and woman and he was right" would that get you in trouble I wonder? Would that be seen as bullying? Should it be seen as bullying? One problem I am seeing today is that there is a trend towards seeing such things as bullying today and therefore schools end up in the position of imposing cultural ideals, and that I think runs right up against the suppression of opposition that I think you are saying is not ok.

superuser2 13y ago
>If that is the case, then allowing parents to teach opposing viewpoints should be a good thing, right? Saying parents can't teach such viewpoints would be suppressing opposition, right? Earlier in this thread I explicitly supported parents' rights to say whatever the want at home. My objection is to preventing their children from hearing what the school has to say. >If you wore a T-shirt that said "Aristotle said the fundamental union of society is between man and woman and he was right" would that get you in trouble I wonder? Would that be seen as bullying? Should it be seen as bullying? No, no, and no. It would lose you the respect of your liberal and/or LGBTQ peers, but the school can't stop you unless it stops all controversial or political speech on clothing (which is a Time, Place, and Manner restriction). I've not heard of students opposition to gay rights in general getting them in trouble for bullying, although it sounds like something that could happen. That would be an inappropriate restriction of free speech. I have heard assholes defending the right to personally bully specific gay kids with derogatory language directed specifically to them, threats, physical violence, etc. That shouldn't and doesn't fly.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  At a very practical level, society needs heterosexual unions (however brief) to survive, but it doesn't need homosexual ones. Why does stating this basic fact lose me the respect of my liberal and queer peers? It's about as accurate and offensive as a t-shirt that says, "We are the descendants of apes, not Adam and Eve."
  - einhverfr 13y ago
    People can respect or not what they want. If culture flows from the grass roots this is a part of it. The question is what role the state has to play in this. Either the state must enforce respect for whatever groups should be respected (you? gay rights advocates?) or they must remain neutral. I don't really see a viable third way. If the state must remain neutral (and hence same with public schools) then the state has no reason to say people must respect you for your political views any more than the other side.
    - superuser2 13y ago
      The issue is to separate respect for opinions from respect for human beings. I don't have to hold you in high regard or accept out your company, but I do have to be civil. You don't get to harass or beat the crap out of someone because "the state should remain neutral."
      - einhverfr 13y ago
        Is a T-shirt which states we should move back towards traditional marriage as the retirement safety net one which is harassment? What if one has a T-shirt advocating banning sperm banks or IVF? My problem is that if the state does not remain neutral on political issues then we have no semblance of democracy.
- einhverfr 13y ago
  > No, no, and no. It would lose you the respect of your liberal and/or LGBTQ peers, but the school can't stop you unless it stops all controversial or political speech on clothing (which is a Time, Place, and Manner restriction). What about the argument that it creates a hostile learning environment for GLBT folks and therefore denies them their right to an equal opportunity for education? What about the argument that such a T-shirt amounts to reinforcing discrimination regarding gender roles? In other words, to what extent does this put schools in a circumstance where if they tolerate the t-shirt they get sueed by one group under Title VII and if they don't tolerate it they get sued by another group under Section 1983? The problem as I see it is that both sides end up with colorable arguments. Moreover suppose the school decides to teach Aristotelian social theory and starts out at the married household level. Is this discrimination? Is this a one-way street? Aristotelian social theory basically states that men and women come together in procreative unions which form households and these form the basic mechanisms of cultural transmission and development. Households come together to create communities. Therefore instead of the Lockean two-level contract (individuals and states) you have three (people and households, households and state). Aristotelian theory thus supports localism and local culture in ways that the theories of folks like Locke, Hobbes, and Hume do not.
  - superuser2 13y ago
    >In other words, to what extent does this put schools in a circumstance where if they tolerate the t-shirt they get sueed by one group under Title VII and if they don't tolerate it they get sued by another group under Section 1983? Good question. I don't think that would pass for discrimination in the courts, but avoiding the lawsuit is an excellent reason for a school to disallow political speech in its dress code and enforce that uniformly (no pun intended). >Moreover suppose the school decides to teach Aristotelian social theory and starts out at the married household level. Is this discrimination? Is this a one-way street? My English summer reading one year was the first five books of the Tanakh. Lots of slavery, genocide, passing around women like property, etc. We also read the first chapter of Mein Kampf in German, and excerpts from the Communist Manifesto in History. Teaching ideas is not the same as preaching them. The courts are never going to rule against presenting what Aristotle thought in philosophy class. That's absurd. If the school decided to preach about the proper unit of family, people would be understandably pissed (including Christians who would rather that authority came from God than Aristotle), but teaching what Aristotle wrote about the proper unit of family as "this is what Aristotle wrote" is pretty cut and dried.
- superuser2 13y ago
  Looks like we've hit max depth. It doesn't. That's an obvious biological fact. But depending on context, one could infer that it's part of an argument that homosexuality is unnatural and therefore wrong. If I told you that the love you feel is an abomination, that we should teach our children to be disgusted by people like you, I'm guessing you wouldn't be excited to strike up further conversation. It's (in my mind) a horrible thing to say, but we still have the right to say it.
  - foobarbazqux 13y ago
    I don't think max depth exists; just hit "link" to reply. Yeah, it's probably aggressive to wear it on a t-shirt. But I don't see the purpose in protecting flagrantly abusive speech.
    - hga 13y ago
      Well, it all depends on who gets to define what is abusive, doesn't it? One justification for allowing unreasonable speech is that in theory it provides a high enough ceiling that all reasonable speech is allowed. Not that that stops extremists in the US from making their number one speech suppression priority about their political opponents' core political speech.
      - foobarbazqux 13y ago
        Well we disallow physical violence but we allow psychological violence, so it seems inconsistent since there's a demonstrated link between psychological violence and physical pain. I think if we can work out a definition of physical assault we can work out psychological assault.
        einhverfr 13y ago
        Does that mean that some political ideas, like "at some point it will be necessary to overthrow the government"[1] or "someday we should exterminate the blacks and expel the Jews"[2] can be banned from public discourse? If so, who gets to make these decisions? Isn't it reasonable to conclude that many hot-button issues today, like whether circumcision violates human rights, constitute psychological violence against, among others, Jews and Muslims? If we end up saying this must protect minority groups, then I think we'd certainly have to say that advocating banning kosher slaughter or circumcision would constitute, particularly in the context of history (which Jews are usually very much aware) continuing psychological violence. But if we go this route doesn't that basically give the state a way to say "hey we don't like that idea so you can't discuss it?" I think that would destroy what little democracy we have left. [1] Yates v. United States, holding that the First Amendment protected abstract advocacy for overthrow of the government. [2] Brandenburg v. Ohio, holding that the line in Yates above extended to protecting abstract advocacy of other violent ends, in that case genocide and expulsion of disliked ethnic and racial groups.

superuser2 13y ago

>If that is the case, then allowing parents to teach opposing viewpoints should be a good thing, right? Saying parents can't teach such viewpoints would be suppressing opposition, right? Earlier in this thread I explicitly supported parents' rights to say whatever the want at home. My objection is to preventing their children from hearing what the school has to say. >If you wore a T-shirt that said "Aristotle said the fundamental union of society is between man and woman and he was right" would that get you in trouble I wonder? Would that be seen as bullying? Should it be seen as bullying? No, no, and no. It would lose you the respect of your liberal and/or LGBTQ peers, but the school can't stop you unless it stops all controversial or political speech on clothing (which is a Time, Place, and Manner restriction). I've not heard of students opposition to gay rights in general getting them in trouble for bullying, although it sounds like something that could happen. That would be an inappropriate restriction of free speech. I have heard assholes defending the right to personally bully specific gay kids with derogatory language directed specifically to them, threats, physical violence, etc. That shouldn't and doesn't fly.

foobarbazqux 13y ago
At a very practical level, society needs heterosexual unions (however brief) to survive, but it doesn't need homosexual ones. Why does stating this basic fact lose me the respect of my liberal and queer peers? It's about as accurate and offensive as a t-shirt that says, "We are the descendants of apes, not Adam and Eve."
- einhverfr 13y ago
  People can respect or not what they want. If culture flows from the grass roots this is a part of it. The question is what role the state has to play in this. Either the state must enforce respect for whatever groups should be respected (you? gay rights advocates?) or they must remain neutral. I don't really see a viable third way. If the state must remain neutral (and hence same with public schools) then the state has no reason to say people must respect you for your political views any more than the other side.
  - superuser2 13y ago
    The issue is to separate respect for opinions from respect for human beings. I don't have to hold you in high regard or accept out your company, but I do have to be civil. You don't get to harass or beat the crap out of someone because "the state should remain neutral."
    - einhverfr 13y ago
      Is a T-shirt which states we should move back towards traditional marriage as the retirement safety net one which is harassment? What if one has a T-shirt advocating banning sperm banks or IVF? My problem is that if the state does not remain neutral on political issues then we have no semblance of democracy.
einhverfr 13y ago
> No, no, and no. It would lose you the respect of your liberal and/or LGBTQ peers, but the school can't stop you unless it stops all controversial or political speech on clothing (which is a Time, Place, and Manner restriction). What about the argument that it creates a hostile learning environment for GLBT folks and therefore denies them their right to an equal opportunity for education? What about the argument that such a T-shirt amounts to reinforcing discrimination regarding gender roles? In other words, to what extent does this put schools in a circumstance where if they tolerate the t-shirt they get sueed by one group under Title VII and if they don't tolerate it they get sued by another group under Section 1983? The problem as I see it is that both sides end up with colorable arguments. Moreover suppose the school decides to teach Aristotelian social theory and starts out at the married household level. Is this discrimination? Is this a one-way street? Aristotelian social theory basically states that men and women come together in procreative unions which form households and these form the basic mechanisms of cultural transmission and development. Households come together to create communities. Therefore instead of the Lockean two-level contract (individuals and states) you have three (people and households, households and state). Aristotelian theory thus supports localism and local culture in ways that the theories of folks like Locke, Hobbes, and Hume do not.
- superuser2 13y ago
  >In other words, to what extent does this put schools in a circumstance where if they tolerate the t-shirt they get sueed by one group under Title VII and if they don't tolerate it they get sued by another group under Section 1983? Good question. I don't think that would pass for discrimination in the courts, but avoiding the lawsuit is an excellent reason for a school to disallow political speech in its dress code and enforce that uniformly (no pun intended). >Moreover suppose the school decides to teach Aristotelian social theory and starts out at the married household level. Is this discrimination? Is this a one-way street? My English summer reading one year was the first five books of the Tanakh. Lots of slavery, genocide, passing around women like property, etc. We also read the first chapter of Mein Kampf in German, and excerpts from the Communist Manifesto in History. Teaching ideas is not the same as preaching them. The courts are never going to rule against presenting what Aristotle thought in philosophy class. That's absurd. If the school decided to preach about the proper unit of family, people would be understandably pissed (including Christians who would rather that authority came from God than Aristotle), but teaching what Aristotle wrote about the proper unit of family as "this is what Aristotle wrote" is pretty cut and dried.
superuser2 13y ago
Looks like we've hit max depth. It doesn't. That's an obvious biological fact. But depending on context, one could infer that it's part of an argument that homosexuality is unnatural and therefore wrong. If I told you that the love you feel is an abomination, that we should teach our children to be disgusted by people like you, I'm guessing you wouldn't be excited to strike up further conversation. It's (in my mind) a horrible thing to say, but we still have the right to say it.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  I don't think max depth exists; just hit "link" to reply. Yeah, it's probably aggressive to wear it on a t-shirt. But I don't see the purpose in protecting flagrantly abusive speech.
  - hga 13y ago
    Well, it all depends on who gets to define what is abusive, doesn't it? One justification for allowing unreasonable speech is that in theory it provides a high enough ceiling that all reasonable speech is allowed. Not that that stops extremists in the US from making their number one speech suppression priority about their political opponents' core political speech.
    - foobarbazqux 13y ago
      Well we disallow physical violence but we allow psychological violence, so it seems inconsistent since there's a demonstrated link between psychological violence and physical pain. I think if we can work out a definition of physical assault we can work out psychological assault.
      - einhverfr 13y ago
        Does that mean that some political ideas, like "at some point it will be necessary to overthrow the government"[1] or "someday we should exterminate the blacks and expel the Jews"[2] can be banned from public discourse? If so, who gets to make these decisions? Isn't it reasonable to conclude that many hot-button issues today, like whether circumcision violates human rights, constitute psychological violence against, among others, Jews and Muslims? If we end up saying this must protect minority groups, then I think we'd certainly have to say that advocating banning kosher slaughter or circumcision would constitute, particularly in the context of history (which Jews are usually very much aware) continuing psychological violence. But if we go this route doesn't that basically give the state a way to say "hey we don't like that idea so you can't discuss it?" I think that would destroy what little democracy we have left. [1] Yates v. United States, holding that the First Amendment protected abstract advocacy for overthrow of the government. [2] Brandenburg v. Ohio, holding that the line in Yates above extended to protecting abstract advocacy of other violent ends, in that case genocide and expulsion of disliked ethnic and racial groups.