"Ruth Malhotra went to court last month for the right to be intolerant.
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."
There's so very much wrong with this, one wonders where to begin.
First off, she's in school to learn, not to teach or preach to others. Then there's the fact that, as a follower of Joshua ben Joseph, TOLERANCE should always be pretty high on the list of virtues to emulate.
It should not matter to Ms Malhotra WHAT persuasion a person might be, just as it should not matter what her persuasion is. It's common knowledge that homosexuals refer to heterosexuals as breeders and many other derogatory terms, and to begin a session of name-calling is juvenile and counter productive to any learning environ.
But this young lady IS juvenile and hasn't reached the point of knowing any better...OBVIOUSLY...so it's the adults in her life that have let her down, and you don't have to look very hard to find headlines laden with examples of grownups teaching kids bad things. It isn't a stones throw from ridiculing people to demanding their death for religious reasons, and that really isn't what religion is all about. Not modern religion.
And sweet Georgia Brown, but it's sensible to disallow harassment of people because of their race, color, creed, gender, or whomever the frig they tickle under the sheets. Sure, gays can be pushy-ass, in your face exhibitionists, and to them it has nothing to do with privacy and all about being assured that they're a part of society just like everybody else even though they're not. Having your cake and eating it too, sort of.
That isn't to say that Ms Malhotra must LIKE or admire some prancing freakshow, but Ms Malhotra MUST respect the right of said prancing freakshow to attend school without being the object of Ms Malhotra's vocal disaffection.
Lots of folks are disgusted by lots of thing, and, on a personal level, homosexuality flat out disgusts the shit out of me but so does eating living, squirming octopi from a skewer like the Asians do. I'm not afraid of neither the octopi nor the skewer, but am allowed to be revolted by, what to me happens to be a revolting thing. I don't ask that all Asians stop being revolting, just that they don't force me to indulge in their revolting pastimes.
So sorry, kid. They have a right to an education, they have a right to be different. And you DON'T have the right to "speak out against" them in that particular environment. Start a web page, talk about it amongst your friends and family, get a permit to protest them to the high heavens and knock yourself out doing so.
But give up messing with other kids in school or YOU'RE the one going to hell.
3 comments:
I actually looked this one up. It's a mare's nest of a complaint.
Some of it seems pretty reasonable - Georgia Tech clearly takes student and public money, and then decides what speech can be made in public and what speech can't. The two complaints about a forcibly cancelled Diversity Bake Sale and a censored protest of the Vagina Monologues seem on point, if overwrought. As an institution grafted to the public tit, Georgia Tech ought to know better.
Some of the complaint seems downright silly, like the idea that Georgia Tech's attempt to create tolerance for gay rights is somehow an endorsement of a particular religion. There's certainly no serious support in the complaint.
Ruth Malhotra is the president of the College Republicans there, and has been involved in multiple controversies over the years, again some of which make her look pretty reasonable and some of which make her look pretty strange.
It's been an interesting half hour or so of research. Imagine how dangerous I could be if I actually knew anything!
Good job. Don't go learnin' a lot now or you'll put the AP out of business, ya here?
Yes, Georgia Tech takes student and public monies. Lots of places take lots of money from everywhere but one thing you cannot do is single one particular group of people out for scorn, ridicule, or loss of free ice cream and pony rides. Can't say gays are bad BECAUSE they are gay. Can criticize them because they're disease carriers, or don't do their homework, or don't love their folks enough, but not because they are what they are.
So she is wrong from the starters pistol. I happen to agree with her, but saying shit like that out loud is hate talk and we ALL have the things we mumble about but hate talk is wrong. Can't do it if you work for IBM, or Ben & Jerry's, or your local government. Find a particular reason for saying someone ain't pretty, but not because they're Jewish, or Polish, or Homo.
Fact of the matter is, Mahotra sounds awful moslem to me, and since I hate moslems she's pissing me off more than ever. Then again, Ruth is Old Testament Jewish, and they actually gave virgin sacrifices to their God, so now I'm livid.
Oh, yes. I'm not defending her right to be an asshole to gay people because they're gay. Part of growing up is learning not to do things like that, and a university can (occasionally) be a good place to learn that.
My sympathy is restricted to her concerns about not being able to speak against affirmative action, or the Vagina Monologues, or any other such nonsense. As opposed to stereotyping and condemning people for their sexual orientation, criticism of political policies or theatre productions seems to be quite legitimate. I do not support Georgia Tech's attempts to squelch this.
What's interesting, of course, is that neither side in the argument seems able to make this basic distinction - that people deserve to be treated well, but ideas are generally fair game.
Like I said, it's a mare's nest.
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