TN hates on the gays some more.Follow

Oh. And as to the whole "Christians imposing their ideas on gays" bit: Homosexuals are not required to learn Christianity in public school. In fact, we have laws forbidding *anyone* being taught religion (and especially Christianity) in public school. I think the point really is that there is a movement to mandate that homosexuality be taught positively in public school. Whether you agree or disagree with either side in this is one thing, but it should be apparent that it's the gay rights folks who are trying to use the public schools to force everyone to learn what they want, not the other way around.


While I agree that the specific law in question is an overreach and is badly written. The core concept of saying "Lots of parents don't want their kids exposed to this stuff at an early age, so let's leave it out of the curriculum until after 8th grade" is not really that unreasonable at all. Public school is the default school most kids will go to. It should strive to be a neutral in terms of controversial ideas as possible and focus just on teaching kids things they need to be productive citizens as adults. Unfortunately, due precisely to that "captive audience" aspect, public schools are also often used as a means of pushing social ideas on kids. Call it a form of propaganda if you want.

IMO, that's not what our public schools should be doing. In any direction.

Totally.

Well, except when you specifically outlaw it.

You're right! He threw a hissy fit and messed up their stuff

By that logic the judicial branch has unbounded powers, since they're the ones who would rule on any case challenging them overstepping the whole "separation of powers" principle in the constitution. Surely you aren't arguing that the Supreme Court can just decide one day that it's in charge of the military and that as long as they rule it's ok, then it is.



This is not about a difficult interpretation of intent though. The founders were abundantly clear about separation of powers. The judiciary does not have the power to make or change laws. Period. They can only interpret them. Frankly, it's scary that some people seem to think that judicial review is unlimited in scope.

And yet you are still arguing about it.

Not at all. The judiciary needs to rule on items that come to them. Unless a bill shows up that states "Is the SCotUS actually the commander-in-chief?" and you have a majority of Varuses (Varusi?) on the court, I think we're fine. Are you really trying to be this silly? Checks and balances still apply... you know, as per the Constitution.

Or someone challenges an existing and long standing law or action, claiming that the President shouldn't really be in charge of the military. Then the court could rule that having a single person commanding all the military forces actually is a violation of the constitution and draft up a replacement which it would find acceptable in which the members of the Court collectively get to command the military. Then, it would require all applicable legislatures to change their laws accordingly.

You get that this is analogous to what the Roe v. Wade decision did, right? The court took a long standing law, and despite nothing in the constitution which directly addressed the issue, decided that because there was sufficient social pressure to change the law, that they would force the change themselves by not just ruling on the case before them, but actually writing law into their decision. That is what "judicial review" has become, and it's not what it's supposed to be.




Except when the court includes what amounts to legislation in their rulings and says "this is what we find constitutional, so you'd all better change your laws to match", then it does violate those checks and balances within the system. But people like you will excuse it as "judicial review" because you happen to agree with the result. That's a dangerous path to walk though. Checks and balances don't mean anything unless we apply them consistently and fairly. Applying them when it benefits you and ignoring them when it doesn't means that inevitably someone else will do the same at some point, but in ways that you don't like. And when you start yelling about "legislating from the bench", who will listen to you then?


The true test of principles is when you apply them even when it doesn't benefit you. If you can't do that, then you don't really have them.

Edited, Apr 28th 2011 3:40pm by gbaji

In any reference by an instructor, whether to answer a student's question, a passing reference to an important event in someone's life or whatever.

Funny how you completely overstated the CA law and now try to water down the TN law.

Then the other two branches shrug off the court, Andrew Jackson style. :D

Maybe it'll help if I rewrite the statement I made?




I think it's very very reasonable for parents to ask that material which they believe might be too mature or controversial for grade and middle school children to be left out of the public school curriculum until a later age. Why wouldn't that be the case? You're trying to test this with examples that don't fit what I'm saying. Try testing with those that do instead.



But that's *not* what we're talking about. We're talking about what is included in the curriculum. That's it. Stop expanding the issue into other areas. We could similarly say that it's wrong to shoot kids in the head in school assembly, but I'm not talking about that either.

The way you test is to take a less controversial issue and test the principle I'm espousing. The principle is: If sufficient parents object to proposed curriculum in public school based on the mature or controversial nature of the subject, then the school should not include it, or should include it at a later grade level. That's what I'm saying. For this to be false, then there can't be a case where it's quite obviously true:

So. Here's a test. I'm a school administrator and I'm a big fan of live donkey sex shows. So, I'm proposing that we show live donkey sex shows to middle school kids in my school in order to educate them about the wonders of man/donkey love. Can parents reasonable object to this being included in the curriculum on the grounds that it's too mature and controversial? Absolutely, they can.


Ah you say. But that's a live demonstration. No one's talking about having gay people perform sex acts in front of the kids. That's not fair! Ok. How about including a section in the curriculum about bestiality? I think that bestiality gets a bad wrap and want kids to be exposed to the positive aspects of bestiality at an early age before society has a chance to convince them otherwise. Can parents complain about that? I hope we all agree that they can.


So. Regardless of your own opinions about homosexuality (and really sexual orientation in general, since I've stated that the exception for heterosexuality makes the TN law wrong), it's not your kids in that class. Parents absolutely should have some say about what their kids are taught or not taught. We're not talking about math, or science, or language here. We're talking purely about the inclusion of curriculum solely designed to increase acceptance of what is absolutely a mature and controversial subject. Kids don't need to be taught in school about sexual orientation that early. It can wait.

IMO, that's perfectly reasonable. The principle is reasonable, the only issue is the specifics in this case. And how we apply the specifics really ought to be up to the parents, right? It's their children and their choice. If they want to teach their kids about different sexual orientations on their own, they're free to do so. It's not like by barring said discussion from school curriculum that it bars the parents from teaching it to their children themselves. It just means that parents who don't want their kids learning about that stuff at such an early age aren't having their children forced to anyway.




But we're not talking about segregation. Why do you keep bringing this up?

So you feel teachers shouldn't be allowed to talk about the president's heterosexual marriage to his wife?

Because this law prohibits mentioning someone's homosexual marriage to a same-sex spouse. Not just talking about butt-love or whatever but casually referencing Ellen Degeneres' marriage to Portia de Rossi (as an example, who cares why it'd come up).

So are you saying neither reference should be allowed or what?

I don't believe so, no. Nor do I believe that most self-identified conservatives would do the same in the opposite case.

But nice job saying "answer honestly" and trying to beg the question.