Speaker of the House Rod Jetton addresses opposition to the Emily Brooker Intellectual Diversity Act in his latest column and he makes some strong points:
Next, the House passed legislation aimed at preventing view-point discrimination at our public colleges and universities. The bill is named after Emily Brooker. Emily was a student at Missouri State University who was punished because she didn't complete a class assignment.
What was the assignment? She was supposed to sign a letter in favor of allowing gay and lesbian couples to adopt children in Missouri. Because of her religious beliefs she refused.
Our proposal would force public colleges and universities to be accountable for protecting each of their students from this type of view-point discrimination. But the liberals claim it's unneeded--that this type of thing never happens.
Well, Emily Brooker would probably differ with them on that point. And, not only is this type of thing happening in our higher education institutions, it's even happening in our elementary and secondary schools.
A teacher in Columbia was recently forced a fifth-grade class to read and respond to an editorial that supported same-sex marriage. This material is highly inappropriate for 10 and 11 year olds.
The school did a great job of acting quickly to fix this. But it was active, involved parents who caught this behavior and demanded action.
On the college and university level, parents and guardians have little or no ability to monitor this type of behavior from educators. We have to make sure those institutions are responsible for their own behavior and protecting students from view-point discrimination.
Jetton is right on the money about this issue and anyone who has read my columns when I was at The Carthage Press or my posts since I started The Turner Report knows that I have always strongly opposed the mentality that seems to exist in some corners that anything that smacks of Christianity does not belong in public education. What happened with Emily Brooker was obviously wrong (though some of those who have commented on my posts on the subject seem to believe that anyone who becomes a social worker should forget about being a Christian at the same time).
The forcefeeding of religious and/or political beliefs, whether they come from the left or from the right does not belong in public education. That being said, I am concerned about the provisions in the Emily Brooker Intellectual Diversity Act that call for paperwork to prove that a school is in compliance. It seems that the government's answer for all problems is paperwork, paperwork, and even more paperwork.
Wouldn't it be better to find another way to get the point across that this type of behavior will not be tolerated in Missouri without adding even more paperwork to an already overburdened system?
1 comment:
I will say it again. If your religious beliefs prevent you from providing appropriate health care services to patients you should be "discriminated" against right out of work. You have the right to believe them but if it effects your clinical work you may not have your license long. The assignment makes sense from a point of view that is seeking to protect future patients from harm but went too far in mandating or coercing her to sign onto it. The means were wrong but not the end. Even bigoted beliefs need to be protect but the First Amendment already does that so what is the purpose for this bill? Smoke and mirrors.
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