The post Contending with Forced Speech appeared first on Anglican Mainstream. by Rick Plasterer, Juicy Ecumenism: One of the most intrusive aspects of the culture war being waged by the Left is the attempt to control speech. If people...
The post Contending with Forced Speech appeared first on Anglican Mainstream.
by Rick Plasterer, Juicy Ecumenism:
One of the most intrusive aspects of the culture war being waged by the Left is the attempt to control speech. If people can be made to say or not say things that accord with political correctness, society can be controlled according to the identity politics of the Left. While America has a much stronger free speech doctrine that most of the West, the advent of transgenderism, or self-defined sex has given a new opportunity for controlling speech in the requirement that self-chosen pronouns be used.
A recent case from Virginia gives hope that at least in that state, and perhaps by the example it gives, nationally, free speech and even religious liberty will give protection against being required to use pronouns which are wrong for a person’s true, biological sex. Peter Vlaming, who was a French teacher at West Point High School in West Point, Virginia was fired from his job in October 2018, for declining as a matter of personal policy ever to use pronouns for that student, thus avoiding the use of male pronouns for a female student. The case actually had begun earlier when he accidently used a female pronoun for the biologically female student.
The Case of Peter Vlaming
The case began in the fall of 2018, when Vlaming accidently called the transgender student “she” in front of the class. The same day, the student complained, and he was placed on administrative leave. That October, the school board voted unanimously to fire him. In 2019, he filed suit against the school board, which lawsuit was dismissed by a Virginia Circuit Court. In September 2021, he requested that the Virginia Supreme Court revive the suit, and the court agreed in February 2022 to hear his petition, which it granted on December 14, 2023. The case was remanded to a lower court for a ruling in line with the state Supreme Court’s decision supportive of Vlaming’s religious liberty and free speech claims.
As was noted by LifeSiteNews, Vlaming was willing to not use female pronouns in reference to the student, and use her new masculine name rather than any pronouns whenever referring to her, but this was not enough for the school administration. The student said that she felt “singled out” by Vlaming not referring to her using masculine pronouns. Although a public hearing resulted in a show of enormous public support for Vlaming, the school board voted 5-0 to fire him for refusing to use female pronouns. A subsequent walk-out by students in support of Vlaming again showed enormous public support for those refusing to use false pronouns, but despite enormous public support, the decision of the school board remained unchanged. For those committed to political correctness, hurt feelings (at least claimed hurt feelings) take priority over obvious truth. A lawyer for the school board said teachers should follow school policies, thus implying they should comply regardless of their religious, conscience, and free speech rights. The school principal said he couldn’t “think of a worse way to treat a child” than to not acquiesce in her delusion.
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