It's amazing how perverse the American left is; the policies they advocate always have an intent and effect the exact opposite of what they claim to want. The most obvious ongoing example is their plea for "tolerance" of everyone... except the majority.
Malhotra says her Christian faith compels her to speak out against homosexuality. But the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she's a senior, bans speech that puts down others because of their sexual orientation.Malhotra sees that as an unacceptable infringement on her right to religious expression. So she's demanding that Georgia Tech revoke its tolerance policy.
With her lawsuit, the 22-year-old student joins a growing campaign to force public schools, state colleges and private workplaces to eliminate policies protecting gays and lesbians from ["]harassment["]. The religious right aims to overturn a broad range of common tolerance programs: diversity training that promotes acceptance of gays and lesbians, speech codes that ban harsh words against homosexuality, anti-discrimination policies that require college clubs to open their membership to all.
The rights of free speech and free association are explicitly mentioned in our Bill of Rights, yet the left has no problem trampling them when they disagree with the way they're exercised. (Abortion, mentioned nowhere in the Constitution and abhorrent to our forefathers, is now sacrosanct.) No public entity enforces a "conservative" speech code, and yet the right is consistantly labeled as fascist.
"The message is, you're free to worship as you like, but don't you dare talk about it outside the four walls of your church," said Stephen Crampton, chief counsel for the American Family Assn. Center for Law and Policy, which represents Christians who feel harassed.Critics dismiss such talk as a right-wing fundraising ploy. "They're trying to develop a persecution complex," said Jeremy Gunn, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief.
Wait... the ACLU actually dismissed a claim of oppression as a "persecution complex"? Whereas all the groups they do represent actually are being persecuted? Please. That's absurd. Here's another example of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief bashing Christianity. Here's an example of the ACLU fighting to force America to admit a highly-intolerant terrorist.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is fighting to overturn the U.S. State Department’s decision not to admit Tariq Ramadan. Please note: Ramadan's grandfather founded the Muslim Brotherhood and his father joined the family business. (The Jew-hating Brotherhood is a staunch advocate of jihad against the West). Ramadan is also a suave apologist for Islamic religious and gender apartheid and is, arguably, pro-jihad. He is, no doubt, a "moderate" compared to al-Qaeda's Bin Laden and Iran's Ahmadinejad.
Anyway, I digress; everyone knows the ACLU is a sham. The point is that the left oppresses its opponents in the name of freedom and silences them in the name of speech. Universities should have no need for speech codes, because the solution to speech you don't like isn't to shut people up; the solution to speech is more speech.
Religious freedom is not a license to attack others, period. If someone claimed to be a member of a radical sect of Islam and decided that this allowed them to speak about suicide bombings or to spread intolerance towards Jews, you would be suitably outraged. This woman is allowed to speak out about her faith all that she wants until it infringes on others.
As to the ACLU thing..though I'm sure that Frontpage is giving a fair and unbiased account of this guy, it should be noted that they pin a bunch of stuff on the guy's dad and grandfather and pretty much hearsay on him. What one's family did should have no bearing on how you are treated. This goes for the unabombers family as much as anyone else.
While I don't think the people or groups of people represented by the ACLU are "oppressed", I don't particularly believe Christians are "oppressed" either.
The Christian Complex
Manish: There should be a much lower standard for denying someone entry to the United States than for proving them guilty in a court of law. If someone's family are all terrorists, that person bears a burden of responsibility to disassociate themselves from their family if they expect to be admitted to America.
Mark: I think more Christians have been killed for their faith throughout the millenia than any other religion (not even counting Catholics vs. Protestants and the like).
MW: Hmm.. I didn't know you were making a throughout-history comparison. I thought we were talking about present-day or nearly-present-day America.
Bringing in the killing of people because of their religion throughout the entirety of recorded history is a separate discussion than the one you started with this commentary about the ACLU and "the American Left".
Manish: "If someone claimed to be a member of a radical sect of Islam and decided that this allowed them to speak about suicide bombings or to spread intolerance towards Jews, you would be suitably outraged."
Actually, tax-funded professors talk like that every day in American classrooms to hostage audiences. High schools, too. And I am outraged about that, but mostly because it's tax funded and in an academic setting.
"This woman is allowed to speak out about her faith all that she wants until it infringes on others."
Infringes on others how? Do people have a right not to hear certain words? A right not to be offended? And keep in mind that this is a government school at which she is not allowed to express her opinions.
That sums it up. There are a large number of folks out there who feel they have the right not to be offended. However, feelings are not facts. The fact is that citzens of the US have the right to say what ever they want about a group of people. They can spread lies and half truths, and they can preach hate. And the rest of us have the right to walk away and not listen to their tripe.
It's when the audience can not just walk away that I have issues with free expression. Publicly funded speech does not enjoy the same degree of unlimited freedom as private speech. Teachers are NOT free to say what ever they feel, while being paid by the public. After work, when their speech becomes private, they are free to trowel out as many fecal phrases as they fancy.
MW: There should be a much lower standard for denying someone entry to the United States than for proving them guilty in a court of law
huh? Where is this court of law stuff coming from? The point is simply that its un-American to tar someone as being something because their father or members of their family are that thing. Heck, the Administration seems to have little concern about dealing with the bin Laden family.
Ben..you can't yell fire in a crowded theatre.
Manish: You're right that you can't yell 'fire' in a crowded theater. (Or maybe these days you could, because theaters don't present the same fire risk that they once did.) But the point there is that the words are untrue, and a reasonable person would foresee that the words would lead to other people being physically injured. That's not quite the same as offending people.