TO: Christine
FROM: Alan Sears, President
More Evidence that "The Pretense of Tolerance" is Over...
Emily Brooker was pursuing a degree in Social Work at Missouri State University. She received an education in intolerance and political correctness instead.
One of Emily's professors assigned his students a project promoting adoption of children by individuals that practice homosexual behavior. The project required that the entire class write and individually sign a letter to the Missouri legislature supporting such adoption. Because of her Biblically based views on homosexual behavior, Emily refused to sign the letter.
What happened next was amazing; and perhaps one of the most vivid examples that I have seen that the "pretense of tolerance" on college campuses is indeed over.
Emily was accused of a "Level 3 grievance" for violation of the School of Social Work's "Standards of Essential Functioning in Social Work Education." This was the most serious charge possible. Emily was told that she had violated three standards: Diversity, Interpersonal Skills, and Professional Behavior, and that her degree might be withheld as a result.
She was dragged into a two-and-a-half hour interrogation by an "ethics committee" made up of faculty members, who allegedly asked her questions such as "Do you think gays and lesbians are sinners?" and "Do you think I am a sinner?"
David French, director of ADF's Center for Academic Freedom filed a complaint in federal district court to defend Emily's First Amendment rights.
A copy of the complaint can be read at Brooker Complaint.
The nation's faith-based and conservative media picked up the story as well.
Now, the university has settled the case "affirming Emily's First Amendment rights " and dropping the grievance from her record! Not only that, the school will pay her tuition for two years of graduate school and the professor was removed from his administrative duties and placed on non-teaching leave for the rest of the semester.
We praise God for another victory for the right to hear and speak the Truth. Please pray for the many courageous Christian students whose faith is under attack on a daily basis on our nation's public university campuses, and that ADF's Center for Academic Freedom will continue to grow in its capacity to defend and protect student constitutional rights to free speech and association.
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18 comments:
Hmm...I read the complaint and I think the University acted extremely unprofessionally and I'm glad that they recognised it by settling.
If they tried this at my University someone would have gotten fired.
What I don't get how is how you link this to the wider topic of 'Christianity isn't tolerated on college campuses.' It's one example of some people behaving badly.
Brooker was told her religious beliefs conflicted with the National Association of Social Workers’ code of ethics. As a condition for graduation, the lawsuit alleged, Brooker was made to sign a contract requiring her to conform to that code even though she objected to the contract.
From: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/15984900.htm
Hey, if I tried that shit for say a Computer Science degree or something and refused to sign the Code of Ethics of the New Zealand Computer Society they wouldn't give me my degree! And i'd agree with them!
You shouldn't be allowed to be an accredited Social Worker if you don't agree with the body that accredits you.
So on that count you're wrong.
However, I do agree with you on the being forced to sign a petition "promoting adoption of children by individuals that practice homosexual behaviour" thing. Want to know why?
Because I wouldn't sign a petition to make said thing illegal or to ban gay marriage or whatever, even as a condition of graduation or whatever.
But would you still be praising god if that happened to me and I sue and won for the right to freely practice MY religion (or lack thereof) of choice?
But hey, that's why you guys have a first amendment. ;)
Hi Stacy,
I think that you are absolutely right about pro-lifers being untolerated and even demonized. It's almost at the point where "choice" is elevated to "godly behavior" and being pro-life means you are "crazy." What an example in our day of "calling that which is good (pro-life) evil, and that which is evil, (pro-death abortion!) good!
I look forward to hearing the podcast later. Need to go to the dentist this morning...such fun...yeah.
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Jody,
You can attempt to spin this all you want but the fact remains that here we see yet another incident that proves how "political correctness" tries to trump the law in these liberal universities. I'm sure that we haven't heard of many similar incidences like the Brooker case because of the threats that are given to shut people up. She is to be commended for bravely facing the status quo (which is wrong in and of itself) in a liberal university that tends to elevate gay rights (to such an extent that they are even policing the thoughts and beliefs of a religious individual!) to a position of "authority" that it probably should never have reached in the first place!
The withholding of her degree is a serious breach of her rights and the university deserves to suffer the monetary consequences of this lawsuit as well as the backlash that it is getting as word of this injustice spreads!
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Ebsfwan,
Did you read the questions leveled at Miss Brooker during her 2 1/2 hr. interrogation?
"Do you think gays and lesbians are sinners?" and "Do you think I am a sinner?"
Why do you think they were interrogating her with those questions? It's because they know that the Christian Bible condemns such behavior as sin. Most likely, they weren't asking those questions in a civil manner. It was probably more likely being used to gain "evidence against her" in order to punish her.
But the tables were turned on them because of the free speech rights of religious tolerance in our Constitution. It's something that they don't want to acknowledge, but the law says that they need to.
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Stephen,
You got that right! PC crazies are legion in the States!!
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Lewis,
I think that the point here is that the professor went far beyond the need for tolerance into the realm of making her choose to accept, and do something that her faith tells her is wrong in order to be considered "tolerant."
Tolerance does not mean acceptance! But today, that word has lost it's original meaning due to "political correctness." PC isn't an absolute law that governs the universe. It means disagreeing with the other side, allowing them their views while they allow your views, while still being civil about it.
Signing a petition that would violate one's beliefs (especially if it got on a ballot for people to vote on it) is anathema to what our First Amendment rights call for.
Just turn this around. For example. Let's say that you are pro-choice, and a university professor wanted you to sign a petition to outlaw abortion in that state. If you didn't, then you would be considered "intolerant," in violation of the "social works code" (or whatever it is) and be forced to choose between signing it or having your degree withheld. Would that be right or wrong?
Let me see if I have this "straight". Some bonehead professor tried to force a student to sign a petition that conflicted with her beliefs, she took him to court, she won, gets two years of grad school paid for, the professor gets reassigned, and you conclude from this that Christians aren't tolerated?
Seems to me that the student wisely used the system to protect her rights and said system, which the Christian right loves to condemn, did what it was designed to do and protected her rights.
Well said Limpy!
You're missing the point, Limpy99.
Tell me what the point is.
I think your point is, again, that Christians are persecuted for their beliefs. That poor old Emily was asked to do something against her life and hauled before a hostile board, questioned, and threatned with all sorts of nasty ramifications if she didn't toe the line.
Fine. There are people all over the world who will persecute people who don't believe as they do. Christians for instance, don't seem to have much of an inclination to let the homos live their lives. Homos can't seem to stop dressing women in hideous fashions. Yankee fans tell Red Sox fans they suck, and vice versa.
My point is that on an individual basis we'll never run out of people on any issue who are willing to persecute those who disagree with them. That unfortunately is human nature. What is an important is that the person being oppressed as an outlet to turn to that will stop the persecution. And in this case, Emily did just that. Good for her. But if your point is that Emily's case shows how society persecutes Christians, it doesn't work. Society backed her up.
If you have a different point and I'm missing something, well, fire away. I'm always glad to reconsider.
@Christine:
That's exactly what being tolerant is.
If you're doing something that I don't agree with, you "tolerate" it. Trying to make what you're doing illegal is INTOLERANT.
"It means disagreeing with the other side, allowing them their views while they allow your views, while still being civil about it.
"
Yeah, because making gay marriage illegal is TOTALLY allowing gay people their own views that they should be able to get married!
Trying to make it illegal is real civil, NOT.
Christians like you ARE intolerant, since you people won't let us live our lives the way we want, when we're not hurting anyone. Yet you turn around and hurt US.
Limpy99 said, "If you have a different point and I'm missing something, well, fire away. I'm always glad to reconsider."
Besides what I have already posted on this matter within this thread, this incident was just one more example (others include the bogus arrest of Christians protesting at a gay pride parade and the harassment and threats leveled at the librarian that wanted to recommend conservative books including "The Marketing of Evil" to incoming freshmen at the university) of the constant effort by gay activists and their supporters to criminalize criticism of homosexual conduct and to violate religious freedom and freedom of conscience. That is their intended goal. There is no doubt in my mind about such a goal, either.
Jody,
If "hate crimes" and "hate speech" laws ever pass in the U.S., then many of the protections currently in place for religious believers would indeed be jeopardized. Why? Because one law would inadvertently give extra protection to a group of people based on sexual behavior, whereas, IMO, such extra (and therefore, unequal!) protection is not warranted.
Thus, if one law is elevated above the other, it would most likely trump the "older" law. Just take a look at what happened to Ake Green in Sweden! We don't have to imagine how freedom of religious speech, freedom of association, and freedom of religious practice would suffer under similar, socialistic ideology.
Christine...you have a double standard here. You are against hate speech being legislated against
"Because one law would inadvertently give extra protection to a group of people based on sexual behavior"
So why do heterosexuals get more rights based on their sexual behaviour? They are allowed to marry and get the associated legal benefits whereas gays are not.
Yes, what did happen to Ake Green? He was acquitted, right? The judge ruled that it was an overreaction on the part of the authorities, right? He never spent a day in jail, right?
But the Bible still says that homosexuals should be put to death, doesn't it?
So, what we've got in the USA is "protection" for hate speech. I don't particularly mind that...as long as no one is encouraged to act on that speech. Then it really DOES become a "hate crime".
Wow! This article is awesome and certainly explains it better than I could here!
”…It is interesting to note that the campus ministries are willing to let homosexual students attend their meetings but not to assume leadership roles if they reject the group’s core beliefs.
Seems reasonable to me: do I have a “right” to be on the Board of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force?”
I’d say no…but you still have the right to attend a meeting!
This article illustrates all the more why you should do your Christian duty and get out there and KILL THEM!!! That is what your faith and morality guide exhorts you to do.
Oh, I forgot: you’re “no longer free” to do that because of those horrid secular laws that don’t allow murder. Poor baby.
Even you must realize that Elton John doesn’t speak for all gays, any more that Ted Haggard (for example) didn’t speak for all evangelicals. The banning of religion he supposedly “called for” was simply his opinion, as you’d see if you reread it.
…By the way: what did happen to Pastor Green? You don’t seem anxious to talk about it. I’m also curious to know exactly where in the Bible that the sanction against homosexuals was rescinded. As you have an Apologetics certificate, that should be child’s play.
Article:”…It is interesting to note that the campus ministries are willing to let homosexual students attend their meetings but not to assume leadership roles if they reject the group’s core beliefs.
Seems reasonable to me: do I have a “right” to be on the Board of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force?”
GM: "I’d say no…but you still have the right to attend a meeting!"
Ah! So you do recognize that tolerance does not mean acceptance!
I attended several Gay/Straight alliance meetings (as a parent observer) but was not allowed to speak at the meeting. So, they tolerated parents being there, but didn't accept them to speak there! In fact, when it came to inviting a straight guest speaker (who happened to be ex-gay) the students turned down his offer! So, in other words, they tolerate straight speakers who affirm their beliefs, but not an ex-gay who had "been there, done that" and could have helped those sexually questioning high school students? Hmmmm....
GM:"This article illustrates all the more why you should do your Christian duty and get out there and KILL THEM!!! That is what your faith and morality guide exhorts you to do."
Just a typical GM rant when he runs out of arguments! This has been addressed many times over GM. If you missed those explanations, do a search and get over your idiotic tendency to constantly bark such jihadist things. Are you a closeted Islamo-fascist or something? Sure sounds like it sometimes!
GM: "Oh, I forgot: you’re “no longer free” to do that because of those horrid secular laws that don’t allow murder. Poor baby."
No. It's not just the secular laws that would prevent me from doing anything like that. But if you had an "ear to hear" you would already know the genuine reasons!
GM: "
Even you must realize that Elton John doesn’t speak for all gays, any more that Ted Haggard (for example) didn’t speak for all evangelicals. The banning of religion he supposedly “called for” was simply his opinion, as you’d see if you reread it."
Yeah. Elton John has an opinion that is heard around the world because of his celebrity. Like gay-jihadist Rosie O'Donnell, their Christian/religious bashing is heard without a peep of being called on their hate. Typical...
GM: "…By the way: what did happen to Pastor Green? You don’t seem anxious to talk about it. I’m also curious to know exactly where in the Bible that the sanction against homosexuals was rescinded. As you have an Apologetics certificate, that should be child’s play."
We know that Pastor Green was aquitted, and it was a good thing that he was! Otherwise, a guilty verdict and jail time would have placed pastors all over the world in danger of jeopardizing their preaching of the truth about homosexual behavior being an abomination and sin against God and man. We would have a kind of "commie-homosexual police state" as a result!
Now go ahead...burst another blood vessel on that!
BTW, an Apologetics certificate doesn't enable a person to get through to everyone. There are some lost causes, unfortunately, who wish to remain so.
There is a reason why Proverbs tells us two reasons regarding "answering a fool":
Pro 26:5 Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.
Pro 26:4 Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.
”Ah! So you do recognize that tolerance does not mean acceptance!”
Of course I do. You tolerate the pimply kid in class because his dad is important to the school…but you don’t accept him. You tolerate the flu because it won’t go away for at least two weeks, but you accept it only because it won’t go away until it’s run its course. You tolerate the minority family down the street because it’s no longer considered cool to burn crosses at their door or hurl stones at their windows; but you still think they bring property values down, or their social values are strange, so you tell your kids to steer wide of their kids, and “overlook” their presence in their community…in short, you never accept them.
I’ve seen this happen even in “enlightened” California, so don’t tell me it doesn’t.
”Just a typical GM rant when he runs out of arguments! This has been addressed many times over GM. If you missed those explanations, do a search and get over your idiotic tendency to constantly bark such jihadist things. Are you a closeted Islamo-fascist or something? Sure sounds like it sometimes!”
You mean I have to be a Muslim to hate gays?? Last time I checked, neither Haggard nor Falwell nor Dobson nor you were proclaiming love or even ‘tolerance’ for them…and none of you were praising Allah, either.
I see you’re slinging around the word “jihadist” as if you’d just learned it. Being a Christ*** you should use that more elegant term, “jeremiad”. It suits you better.
”We know that Pastor Green was aquitted, and it was a good thing that he was! Otherwise, a guilty verdict and jail time would have placed pastors all over the world in danger of jeopardizing their preaching of the truth about homosexual behavior being an abomination and sin against God and man. We would have a kind of "commie-homosexual police state" as a result!
Now go ahead...burst another blood vessel on that!”
‘Commie-homosexual’…wake up, lady. It’s 2006, not 1956.
Commies don’t like gays, fascists don’t like gays, Mohammedans don’t like gays, Christers don’t like gays. Capitalists do, but they like anyone with extra money in their pockets.
According to leading authorities like Mark Foley, homosexuals constitute a danger to marriage. They have been blamed for the destruction of the World Trade Center. Yet in spite of all this, I still hear you claim that living that way was a “choice”. Well, ol’ Pastor Ted, to say nothing of all those priests, show us vividly the consequences of their “choice” to live a lie.
If you really wanted to protect marriage, you would make it so that one must leave the country to get divorced, or make it so incredibly expensive and time-consuming that only a Bill Gates could do it. But you don’t; you just don’t want “them” to share in what you’ve got.
”BTW, an Apologetics certificate doesn't enable a person to get through to everyone.”
An Apologetics certificate means that you know how to answer questions put to you by the school authorities. In the real world, however, most of those answers don’t stand up to examination, so you won’t answer when people like me put such questions to you.
You said this to me only a few days ago: “I know that you have heard some of this before. But there are dozens of new readers and a few new commentors who haven't so it bears repeating now and then.”
Okay. If you won’t repeat it for me, repeat it for them, or show us that you only teach the Word when it’s convienient.
”There are some lost causes, unfortunately, who wish to remain so.”
Let me see…ah, here it is: ”How could you know, and/or judge, whether or not people reading this blog are now considering faith in Jesus Christ?
Oh I see.
It's because you fancy yourself as you're own "god," now don't you...
Big mistake...huge mistake! Same one that Lucifer once made too, I might add.”
Gee…I wonder who’d say such a thing.
Ebsfwan said, "So why do heterosexuals get more rights based on their sexual behaviour? They are allowed to marry and get the associated legal benefits whereas gays are not."
Homosexuals have the right to marry just as heterosexuals do. We each have the right to marry someone of the opposite sex. This is the time-honored meaning of marriage. One man and one woman. All other relationships are called something else.
As a heterosexual woman, I do not have the right to "marry" another woman either. There have been some arguments that if "gay" marriage became legal everywhere, two hetero women and two hetero men might want to "marry" just for the purpose of getting additional tax benefits. But now I'm drifting away from the original article's arguments.
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Jody,
Admittedly, I am not a lawyer and therefore would not know all of the implications of what certain laws may or may not lead to. However, I have observed what has been going on with the gay agenda for about 6 years now. I have seen former laws protecting certain rights (especially of parents!!) turned on a dime in this country due to homosexual activism, lobbying, etc. The two opposing entities in this cultural war are not about to lay down their weapons of choice and just agree to get along.
The fact that people are being harrassed on college campuses and often sued for no good reason makes the "hate" crimes laws all the more useless. This student should never have even been subjected to that persecution in the first place! It is only because people are using the system to "stomp their feet" in protest of perceived inequality that such ridiculous incidences like this one are happening.
As I had mentioned in previous posts, the staged "hate" crimes by gays and lesbians (as well as any other group) is another reason to avoid such designation in the first place.
Yes. Our First Amendment rights are intact, for now, but if hate crimes laws pass in the U.S. how long will the ability to reject homosexual behavior be allowed? We can see how one Supreme Court decision in favor of the boy scouts against a gay activist has resulted in relentless harrassment towards that organization. Is this a good thing? Absolutely not! But does the scout organization scream "hate" crime when they are systematically kicked out of places where they had the privilege to gather since scouting began because the secular humanists in charge of that city or town choose to trump that organization's freedom of association rights? No. They don't. They just continue to suffer at the hands of gay activists who cannot stand the time-honored Biblical morality and values that the scouts want to follow. The fact that they wish to remain "morally straight" irks them and they apparently will continue their harrasment jihad against the scouts for no other reason than to get back at them for winning that Supreme Court decision.
It's terribly sad that gay activists have to be so vicious towards an organization set up for children and teen boys. It appears to me that they won't stop such harrassment until the ACLU accomplishes their goal of complete acceptance of everything homosexual (btw, it's only open homosexual advocacy that is not allowed) before they will stop such harassment. Reminds me of Nazi Germany!
Lastly, it may be "legal" for gay activists to harass, sue, and intimidate the boy scouts, conservative & religious college students, high school students and their parents who oppose homosexual behavior advocacy, but it doesn't make it right or a good thing to do so.
Christine: “I have observed what has been going on with the gay agenda for about 6 years now. I have seen former laws protecting certain rights (especially of parents!!) turned on a dime in this country due to homosexual activism, lobbying, etc.”
Maybe that’s why the law of habeas corpus has been suspended. Now, thanks to the God-fearing conservative Republicans a citizen may now be arrested without cause, held without trial—indefinitely—and if/when released, cannot seek redress from the government. This, too, has happened in the past six years, but you’re more concerned with certain other rights ‘turned on a dime’. The church = state agenda activism is at least as menacing as your gay agenda boogeyman. In six years the Religious Reich has gotten same-sex marriage legislation on the books in 45 of the states, yet it’s still not quite “law of the land” as in a Constitutional amendment.
BTW, what parents’ rights have been turned on a dime, and how did the gays’ lobby achieve it?
”The two opposing entities in this cultural war are not about to lay down their weapons of choice and just agree to get along.”
Not unless someone on both sides is willing to make the first move, no. When one side believes the other is pushing a fascistic plan to keep them second-class citizens forever, and the other side regards its opponents as lost souls out to destroy the God-ordained institution of marriage, reconciliation just ain’t gonna happen. One side sees it as a mass effort to shove them back into the closet, and the other side sees it as preventing the End of Society As We Know It.
“Reconciliation”. Christian evangelicals seem to love that word. They seem to have learned its meaning in regard to God, and perhaps that’s why they can’t apply it to the world around them.
”It's terribly sad that gay activists have to be so vicious towards an organization set up for children and teen boys. It appears to me that they won't stop such harrassment until the ACLU accomplishes their goal of complete acceptance of everything homosexual (btw, it's only open homosexual advocacy that is not allowed) before they will stop such harassment. Reminds me of Nazi Germany!”
You don’t study history well, do you? The Nazis had their own version of the Scouts. They were called the Hitler Youth, and the only kids in Germany that weren’t members were Jewish kids; there were other plans for them.
The Scouts resemble the military in many ways (and that’s no coincidence, BTW), in that the kids eventually meet people from outside their circle. In the right context, it’s not such a shock to learn that people who eat different foods and think different thoughts are actually not that different; they walk and play and go to the bathroom just like you do. If you’re told as a kid that Person X is “bad” because he’s ________, and you discover that he isn’t…that’s enlightenment, right?
(Some) Christians proclaim “we are all children of God” and hastily add, “except for them”. I hope you won’t try to deny this, and I sincerely hope you’re not one of those Christians.
”Lastly, it may be "legal" for gay activists to harass, sue, and intimidate the boy scouts, conservative & religious college students, high school students and their parents who oppose homosexual behavior advocacy, but it doesn't make it right or a good thing to do so.”
If you’ll take the same attitude toward those who harass, sue, intimidate and occasionally murder those who are openly homosexual, then maybe we can talk.
But I won't hold my breath.
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