Denying Constitutional Rights to Some Americans Will Have Consequences for All Americans

Federal Judge Denies Parent Group Petition to Overturn School District Bullying Policy

Moral Bankruptcy from "Parent" Group in Ohio School District

There are a lot of political groups in this country, organized for the purpose of opposing rights for some Americans, mainly those whose lifestyle and personal beliefs they do not agree with, or that they think somehow has a reflection on the culture at large and they don't want to have to explain to their children, or perhaps worry that they might be influenced and take up that kind of lifestyle.  Among many groups of Evangelical Christians, especially the Pentecostal and Charismatic branches, there's a belief that God is going to hold America accountable for allowing people who live, according to them, a sinful lifestyle, to have rights like everyone else.  

That's bad theology, a twisted and inaccurate interpretation of the Bible, and its shocking to hear that coming from people who are supposed to be reflecting a whole different set of values than vengeful hatred of anyone they don't like.  But it plays well behind the pulpit, to beat one's chest, decrying the sinfulness of the world and longing for the day when God destroys this country because its Christians haven't converted enough sinners.  

So there's this group in Ohio, "Parents Defending Education," that has been outspoken against protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ persons.  In fact, this group has exhibited unbridled racism in their desire to see book bans of LGBTQ issues and Critical Race Theory in schools.  This group actually filed a lawsuit against the Olentangy School District in Delaware County, an affluent, predominantly white-flight suburban area north of Columbus, to have a policy protecting transgender students in the school district from bullying overturned.  

Specifically, the parts of the policy they sued to remove included identity-based bullying, identity being based on race, color, national origin, sex, including sexual orientation and gender identity, disability, age, religion, ancestry, or genetic information.  They also wanted  the policy against the use of derogatory language aimed at these protected groups removed from the rules.  

I find it very difficult to imagine a group identifying as parents would want to have rules against draconian behavior against students because of their identity overturned, so that bullying, cussing people out and tormenting them can take place without consequences.  Their attitude leads me to define them in the terms used by the Apostle Jude, in his epistle in the New Testament, calling out intruders in the church who had the same kind of attitude.  He called them "blemishes, waterless clouds carried along by the winds, autumn trees without fruit, twice dead and uprooted, wild waves of the sea casting up the foam of their own shame, wandering stars for whom the deepest darkness has been reserved forever."  

A Ku Klux Klan Without Robes and Hoods

When I was in high school, I wrote a paper in my civics class, defending free speech, using the abhorrent message and behavior of the Ku Klux Klan as an example of how, no matter how bad we think something may be, no matter how morally low and depraved and twisted the people who push these ideas can get, as long as they do not interfere with the rights of other Americans, touch their physical person or property, they have the right to free expression.  The law intervened when Klansmen became violent and threatening, committed crimes and terrorized African Americans, and later on, anyone they didn't like or who didn't meet their definition of white, protestant American.  But their right to freedom of consicence and freedom of speech was constitutionally protected. 

I had a hard time wrapping my mind around that.  It was difficult to separate their violent behavior, I thought, from their angry, misguided, morally wrong words and attitudes.  What an absolutely visionary, remarkable document that makes the United States Constitution, that its protection is strong enough to hold up in the face of the complete absence of values and morals for a group like the KKK.  

And here we have, in the "Parents Defending Education," abhorrent, disgusting racism without the hoods and robes.  Of course, one of the reasons the Klan wore those ugly things was to prevent being personally identified.  These people, apparently, have lost that shame. 

Turning the Tables

Thankfully, a federal judge who knows the Constitution well enough to know what it protects and doesn't protect, denied the lawsuit and upheld the school district's right to protect its students, all of them, from violence, trauma and bullying.  There will still be those who, in their cruelty and anger, will refuse to enforce these district policies,  overlook the bullying, or walk away from it, or pretend it isn't happening while secretly hoping those being bullied will get hurt because of who they are.  Hopefully they will get fired for overlooking it if they are caught.  

But suppose this policy had been overturned?  That means the children of the "Parents Defending Education" could be subject to bullying and torment for any one of a dozen reasons kids to that to each other.  And there would be nothing the parents could do about it, and no consequences for the bully.  If LGBTQ students can be subject to bullying because of who they are, and there are no consequences for the torment, then any student can be subject to bullying because of who they are, or what they believe and those who did the tormenting would not be subject to any consequences.  

Why is it that any time conservatives are in charge, including those who supposedly claim Christian faith, the end result of whatever situations they argue over is always violence and hatred?  What group of parents are favorable toward any child being bullied for any reason?  How despicable and morally bankrupt is this group of parents, who are not defending anything except their own ignorance? 

Consider yourselves fortunate that the Constitution protects your freedom of conscience and free speech.  And consider yourselves lucky that this federal judge, Algenon Marbley, determined that your lawsuit was unconstitutional and wrong.  What you are advocating is open season for bullies in school, and some of the victims might have been your own children. Your advocacy would have left you with no recourse.  

So think about someone else, for a change, and not just your own selfishness.  These students, being who they are, do not cause you any problem by having the same rights as you do, including the right to be protected from violent,, anti-social, evil bullies who get their kicks out of hurting people they don't like.  There's no tyranny involved here, at least not for you, and if your children were participants in the bullying these students endured, then shame on them, and shame on you for allowing it and letting it go unpunished.