Why in the world can’t we let each other talk? Why do we want to silence those with different opinions? Here are two very different cases of people trying to exercise their right to free speech, having to fight those who want to silence them because they don’t like the message.
The first is from a woman who wrote a letter to the editor of her local paper noting that being gay was not the same as being black (Um…I would think was obvious) and was fired from her job because of it:
A woman is suing the university where she worked for firing her over a privately written newspaper commentary expressing her Christian views on homosexuality.
Crystal Dixon, the former associate vice president of human resources at the University of Toledo
, was fired in May after she objected to an opinion article in the Toledo Free Press that compared striving for “gay rights” with the civil rights struggles of black Americans.
Dixon responded with a Free Press editorial of her own, written not in her capacity as a university employee but as a private citizen.
“As a Black woman,” Dixon wrote, “I take great I take great umbrage at the notion that those choosing the homosexual lifestyle are ‘civil rights victims.’ Here’s why. I cannot wake up tomorrow and not be a black woman. I am genetically and biologically a black woman and very pleased to be so as my Creator intended.”
University of Toledo President Lloyd Jacobs immediately suspended Dixon and condemned her statements. Within days, Dixon was fired.
Now, with the help of the Thomas More Law Center, a not-for-profit law firm dedicated to the defense and promotion of the religious freedom of Christians, Dixon has today filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court claiming violations of her constitutional rights of free speech.
Whether you agree with the opinion she expressed or not, don’t you think she has the right to express it?
Well, how about this one?
Withrow’s neighbors are humbugging out about the “Yes We Can” message she wrote in red, white and blue lights on the roof of her home in southeast Aurora’s Tuscany subdivision.
Yes they are. No kidding.
Members of the Tuscany Maintenance Association apparently are so offended by the three words that they have sent not just one, but two testy letters citing a threat to property values, demanding the lights’ immediate removal and threatening Withrow with a fine.
Political sour grapes! All the woman woman wanted to do was show her patriotism along with her Christmas display. I wonder if they would have complained if she has put up a lighted, “Support the troops” sign.
And trying to silence someone never works and usually backfires:
She also is mulling further flexing her First Amendment muscles with more lights on her roof that are sure to annoy the association.
” ‘Praise Allah,’ I’m thinking, or ‘Allah is Great,’ ” she said.
(via)
posted December 2, 2008 at 9:08 am
The first instance is a violation of the First Amendment and typical of how universities act when face with dissenting views.
The second is probably a violation of the covenants on the property that the home owner voluntarily agreed with when purchasing the house. In this instance there is no violation of the First Amendment.
posted December 2, 2008 at 11:53 am
The first instance is probably a calculated attack designed to upset gay students.
The first instance is an exercise of free speech. There is no evidence of a covenant.
My point is, assume makes an ass of you and me. And there are plenty of asses on both sides. Good post, Michelle!
posted December 2, 2008 at 11:58 am
The court will rule against the association. Political speech is given the highest protection and the covenant will be thrown out by the courts. They always are in these cases.
The University is going to end up paying through the nose.
posted December 2, 2008 at 12:40 pm
About the Human Resources woman fired for her anti-gay editorial. Doesn’t her specific position as VP of Human Resources at a state university have to come into play here? The university has a policy that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, gender, or sexual preference. That puts her distinctly at odds with her employer–and it also opens up the University to any number of lawsuits on the basis of discrimination. They had no choice but to fire her or reassign her. No one is questioning her right to free speech–they’re questioning her right to a position in the university. This is a high-profile woman in the local Black community who knew in advance that her publicly stated opinions would interfere with her position. Oh, and by the way, just we don’t get too hysterical–it wasn’t her “Creator” who made her Black; it was the racist society that she lives in that creates that category based on skin color. Her Creator also created her with, perhaps, long and slender fingers, but that’s not a category that humans choose to discriminate against.
posted December 2, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Why in the world can’t we let each other talk?
You should have been there this morning … I deserve some kind of tongue-biting award or something … only love sees me through, there’s nothing else, there’s no other reason …
myshkin2 is on to something, but I’ve heard outrage (on NPR) from African-Americans that gays may not co-op their civil rights struggle. I don’t have a dog in that fight, so I don’t take a side ‘though I would tend to err in favor of keeping sacred things – even in our secular tradition – sacred.
posted December 2, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Here’s the thing…discriminate is a verb, not an emotion. If Dixon has not acted in her position in a discriminatory way, there is no basis for firing her for discrimination.
posted December 2, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Everyone has the right to free speech, and I think we all exercise that right all the time. The lady working at the college had her opinion and the part I don’t agree with I’m sure she sincerely believes because she wants to believe it; that being, that GLBT choose to be who they are, they don’t, and anyone who works in higher learning professions should know that by 2008. The gay people have equal rights due them as we all do. They are fighting for it every bit as hard as the Black Race did, and will continue until they receive it. The family with their logo of “Yes We Can”, mixing it in with Christmas lights should be left alone, unless their covenents in their Home Association spell it out exactly that they can’t have a personal message put in with Christmas lights, and I doubt it’s there.
posted December 2, 2008 at 10:33 pm
I can see where the university is coming from. No one has a right to hold a position, if the position entails certain requirements. For instance, no one has a right to be a pharmicist in a shoppe open to anyone and refuse to sell birth control to only the unmarried.
If a pharmicist who works for “fred’s drugs” were to state in a letter to the editor in his city, “I’m a pharmicist at Fred’s Drugs, and I think premarital sex is icky. If I had my way, we wouldn’t sell birth control to “those people,”" that pharmicist is a potential liability for Fred, and Fred is within his rights to cease paying the pharmicist to represent his brand.
Such is the case with the University woman. She has every right to write that letter. The university has every right to stop paying her to represent them in that capacity. She is now a potential liability, causing the university to possibly lose qualified job and academic candidates to other schools. I, for one, wouldn’t want to work for a university whose HR dept was effectively run by a person who believes that sexual orientation is a “choice” that people could just wake up and decide didn’t exist?
It’s not about speech, it’s about liability, and University Lady is a liability.
posted December 3, 2008 at 12:55 pm
The discrimination against the college employee is called view point discrimination and has been ruled on by the supreme court. This is classic liberal academia response to a dissenting view point. Her letter was not part of representing the university and if it had been pro rather than anti nothing would have been done to her.
The homeowner association is on strong footing, the are not sanctioning her speech, they are sanctioning her unauthorized modifications to her house which she agreed to voluntarily. They are not preventing her from standing in her front yard expounding her views, writing letters to the editor, or placing bumper stickers on her car. As such, the court will treat this not as a free speech issue but one of contract law.
posted December 4, 2008 at 1:04 am
Those “Maintenance Organizations” are the worst. From my brief experience with a planned community, I know I never want to live in one. The moment you give the community planners (organizers?) one iota of authority they turn into zealous red-tape dispenser-wielding control freaks. Your shrubbery’s too tall, your grass isn’t green enough, your holiday decorations aren’t merry enough, your garage door is slightly off color from ever other one on the block – change it now. No thank you.
posted August 12, 2009 at 9:55 am
Mz Dixon is a @ss.
“those choosing the homosexual lifestyle”
One does not “choose” one’s sexual orientation. Either one is or one is not attracted to people of the same sex. What a doofus.
Also, gay people have lives, not the [one and only] “lifestyle”. Or perhaps there’s is “the black lifestyle” we should be talking about too. What absurd nonsense.
“I cannot wake up tomorrow and not be a black woman. I am genetically and biologically a black woman and very pleased to be so as my Creator intended.”
Likewise, I cannot wake up tomorrow and not be a gay person. I am genetically and biologically a gay person and very pleased to be so as my Creator intended.
I hope she gets her @ss kicked in court.