Florida Teacher Suspended for Anti-Gay Facebook Comment

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From the Orlando Sentinel via Towleroad:

Jerry Buell, a long-time Lake County social studies teacher, said during a recent Facebook exchange that he "almost threw up" in response to a news story about legalized same-sex marriage in New York.

On the same July 25 Facebook post he identified the same-sex marriages to being part of a "cesspool." He went on to call the unions a sin.

The comments were made on Buell's personal Facebook page but were visible to friends in his network. Buell argued he made the post on his own time on his personal computer.

"It wasn't out of hatred," he said in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel. "It was about the way I interpret things."

And here is the comment your Head Trucker just posted to Towleroad, beginning with my reaction to some other commenters' remarks:

"We don't want people like that teaching our children" . . . Jeezus, people, where have we heard THAT before? Notice how quickly the language of intolerance - and plain old snootiness - is adopted here.

Which just goes to prove the old, old story - being oppressed does not necessarily make you wiser, kinder, or enlightened. Both history and today's papers are full of examples to show that it is just one tiny step from being oppressed to being an oppressor. And a really mean, haughty, ugly one at that.

I totally disagree with Mr. Buell's attitude, and I hope it changes, just as I hope all my deeply conservative relatives have a similar change of heart and mind one day. But in the meantime, Mr. Buell made the remark well away from his job and his students, and in my opinion is firmly within his Consitutional right to do so.

The First Amendment doesn't give you the right ONLY to agree with the next guy, ya know buds? Nor does it guarantee you will never hear anything you don't like. Freedom of speech means freedom of speech. Deal with it.

Because tomorrow it will be your ass on the line over some small but politcally incorrect remark. And you won't like that a damn bit.

What do you say, fellas?