Judge: Principal Went On Gay Witch Hunt

[WillParkinson]

A federal judge has accused a Florida high school principal of going on a witch hunt for gays.

In a stinging rebuke, US District Judge Richard Smoak, said in a written ruling that Ponce de Leon High School principal David Davis led a “relentless crusade” against homosexuality at the school.

“Davis embarked on what can only be characterized as a witch hunt,” Smoak’s ruling said. The ruling also said that Davis led “morality assemblies” that ignored the First Amendment.

The written ruling was released two months after student Heather Gillman and the American Civil Liberties Union won a free-speech lawsuit that cost the school district $325,000.

Davis has since been replaced as principal.

During the two-day trial in May, Davis testified that he believed clothing, buttons or stickers featuring rainbows would make students automatically picture gay people having sex.

He went on to admit that while censoring rainbows and gay pride messages, he allowed students to wear other symbols many find controversial, such as the Confederate flag.

http://www.365gay.com/news/072808-witch-hun/

[dsc]

1. Glad the good guys won this one.

Couldn't happen to a more deserving prinicipal, now if only it could be that all the money won comes from him and not the district.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

2. Well of course he let kids wear the Confederate flag.

He's probably got one hanging in his own living room, next to the gunrack and noose.

[MountainLaurel]

12. Wouldn't doubt it in the least n/t

[Trillo]

3. Following Davis' reasoning,

"clothing, buttons or stickers featuring rainbows would make students automatically picture gay people having sex",

then I guess every time he saw a couple together in public, perhaps eating dinner together at a restaurant, he "pictured" them as having sex.

Just one more example of how early training of acceptable vs unacceptable vs legal speech is taught. Which lesson is more powerful? The civics lessons given in classes, abstracted as they are, of the greatness of the Bill of Rights, or the examples made of a few wearing rainbows?

[formercia]

4. He will get a good job at a Xtian private school

unless the State revokes his credentials.

[Q3JR4]

9. Perhaps even if the state

revokes his credentials?

Q3JR4.
Not willing to put anything past THEM.

[formercia]

10. or doesn't Florida require credentials to be a school administrator?

nothing would surprise me about that State.

[VaYallaDawg]

15. ESPECIALLY if the state revokes them. n/t

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. God help us all when the conservatives figure out what the adapted peace sign

represents.

[hootinholler]

7. Adapted Peace Sign?

:shrug:

-Hoot

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. I'm not talking.

Just describing it by the only reference I know.

[intheflow]

6. Paging Dr. Freud!

I think he means when he sees rainbows he pictures gay people having sex.

While many equate rainbows with the Gay Pride Movement, I think most people also see rainbows as simply being pretty. Or perhaps, if they're Christian or Jewish, they think of God's covenant to Noah that there'd be no more global flooding. His statements say more about his own repressed sexuality, imo, than about any openly GLBTQ person.

[pepperbear]

11. here's the decision in PDF form......

http://www.aclu.org/images/asset_upload_file980_36150.pdf

[TalkingDog]

13. So he thinks that seeing anything resembling a rainbow

can automatically cause any person to picture 2 gay people having sex....

So?

Oh, that's right, gay people having sex is BAD.

Methinks he sees rainbows everywhere.....

[VaYallaDawg]

16. ... I'm always chasing rainbows ...

[galledgoblin]

14. mmm, the mind of a neocon

really, I'd rather not think about the twisted way they must see the world.

[xchrom]

17. some WHERE over the rainBOW --

one thing is for certain -- that 'principal' really shouldn't be around kids like that.

he's thinking about sex -- period -- way too much.