Diana’s Little Corner in the Nutmeg State: Freedom Of Speech?

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Freedom Of Speech?

If they stuck to writing anti-gay slogans and Bible passages on their hand they wouldn’t have crossed the line,

Students At Pennsylvania's McGuffey High School Organize 'Anti-Gay Day' And Allegedly Target LGBT Classmates
The Huffington Post
By Curtis M. Wong
Posted: 04/20/2015

A Pennsylvania high school has come under media scrutiny after a group of students organized an "Anti-Gay Day" in response to the nationally-observed Day of Silence.
[…]
Although the Day of Silence was observed April 17 nationally, McGuffey High School in Claysville scheduled their related activities for Wednesday, April 15 because of a planned field trip, BuzzFeed is reporting. This prompted the group of students to ask classmates to wear flannel shirts and write "anti-gay" on their hands on Thursday, April 16, in protest, according to WPXI-TV.

Okay, so far they didn’t do anything wrong, they were within the limits of the First Amendment, they have a right to be bigots but then,

"We came into school on Thursday and found a lot of people wearing flannel and we couldn’t figure out why,” Zoe Johnson, a 16-year-old McGuffey High School who identifies as bisexual, told BuzzFeed's David Mack. "People started getting pushed and notes were left on people’s lockers. ...I got called a dyke, a faggot. They were calling us every horrible name you can think of."

More troubling still was an alleged "lynch list," which the group was reported to have circulated around the school, according to WPXI-TV.

Now they crossed the line big time, if they called the when they started pushing the student that is called assault and battery and coupled that with calling them dyke and faggot makes it a hate crime. I do not know if Pennsylvania has a hate crime law, but the federal sure does, and it is called the “Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.” And if those students sat down together to come up with the list, that is conspiracy. The school system cannot brush this off, there felonies that were committed.

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Quotes

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

A right delayed is a right denied.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.

Martin Luther King Jr.

No one is born hating another person… People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nelson Mandela

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist
James Baldwin

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.
Newton Lee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.
Albert Einstein

"The point is that there are always obstacles, whether they seem insurmountable or merely bothersome. The question is not how difficult the path, but whether in your heart, you wish to undertake the journey."
Zandru's Forge

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
Mahatma Gandhi

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

You've Got To Be Carefully Taught
You've got to be taught
To hate
And fear
You've got to be taught
From year
To year
Its got to
Be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to
Be carefully
Taught
You've got to be taught
To be
Afraid
Of people
Who's eyes are oddly made
And people who's skin is a different shade

South Pacific
Songwriters: Oscar Hammerstein II / Richard Rogers

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Freedom Of Speech?

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