This is one of those stories where it's easier to just quote it than it is to sum it up.


The ACLU sued on behalf of the students, and won of course, but this was the reaction from the local community.
Here's what you did wrong. When a student came to you because she was being taunted, you validated the taunting. You told her she deserved it, and what's more, you invaded the relationship between that student and her parents--and if she hadn't outed herself to them, there was probably a good reason for it. And what's with the ordering her to stay away from children?

But it wasn't quite enough for you to mistreat one student--no, when other students dared show solidarity with their friend, you violated their freedom of speech. Maybe when you're the principal of a school in a rural area, you can feel like a king, where no one will question your orders, but the reality is that people, even minors, have rights that you're not allowed to violate.

The reason Davis felt he had the authority to do this is because, like many fundamentalist Christians, he believes he answers to a higher power, one that doesn't necessarily recognize freedom of speech or the biological reality of homosexuality. The judge got that, to a certain extent.
What Judge Smoak is saying is that Davis's personal views about homosexuality aren't illegal, but I think they are an issue in the case, in this respect. Davis's belief that his religious views allowed him to trump the rights of his students to speak their minds on a subject that he has only a religious objection to is what caused this mess. If he'd truly understood the nature of the separation between church and state, he'd have known the limits of his power. It's the mindset that cloaks bigotry and hatred in the wrappings of religious rhetoric that makes this kind of mess possible.

Newer Post Older Post Home