Florida history teacher Jerry Buell has been reinstated after being suspended for something he said on Facebook, while school was out, on his own time and using his own computer. Buell posted his thoughts about New York’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage on July 25:
I was watching the news, eating dinner when the story about New York okaying same-sex unions came on and I almost threw up.
If they want to call it a union, go ahead. But don’t insult a man and woman’s marriage by throwing it in the same cesspool as same-sex whatever! God will not be mocked. When did this sin become acceptable???
Government employees like Buell don’t surrender their off-hours First Amendment rights when they sign up for their jobs. The decision to suspend him was not only short sighted and wrong, it was an unconstitutional act of censorship. (Whether he uses his classroom as a forum to impose his political or religious views on children is another matter, and one that wasn’t raised by the school district’s decision to suspend him.)
On today’s show, we talked about that, the tanking of President Obama’s poll numbers in blue states New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and explained why Rabbi Yehuda Levin of New York is no expert on plate tectonics. Listen here:
