I'm going to walk on the wild side here, and take the position that I agree with Liberal MP Keith Martin:
Martin earned the dubious distinction after giving notice that he plans to introduce a private member's motion calling on the government to repeal Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.
No, I'm dead serious -- I think that what constitutes hate speech and what doesn't is sometimes just too hard a call, and I'm a big believer in free speech and I do in fact support Ezra Levant for publishing those cartoons since I, in fact, linked to them myself once upon a time.
Pause.
Waiting for the other shoe to drop.
And here it comes.
So while I'm a firm believer that people should have a great deal of freedom to say what they think, I'd like to see that balanced with other people having a similar amount of freedom to fire their sorry asses for being hateful bigots.
Think about it. Many of the people who are currently espousing "hate speech" are the same ones who love to drone on and on about "accountability" and "personal responsibility" and "actions have consequences" and so on. Great. So let's kill two birds with one stone, shall we?
Let's loosen up Canada's hate speech laws to make it way easier to say derogatory, hateful, racist things. Simultaneously, let's loosen up Canada's employment laws to make it way easier to fire people for doing stuff like that.
You're a school teacher and you have a habit of publicly condemning gays? Fine. You're fired. And, no, you don't get union protection. You want to be a public hatemonger, then at least have the decency to pay the price for it.
What could be a more perfect solution? Canada's conservatives (and conservatives in general) are constantly whinging on about too much legislation, and too much regulation, and government trampling the rights of the individual, etc, etc, yadda yadda yadda. Well, fine then ... let's make it easier to diss someone, while at the same time making it easier to fire that person for dissing someone.
You want to be a loud-mouthed, public racist or homophobe? OK, fine. But then don't go whining for the protection of your civil rights when people decide they don't want anything to do with you and boot your racist ass out the door for it.
Whaddya say? Is that a reasonable compromise? Does that work for you? Because it sure as hell works for me.
BY THE WAY, if you want an example of what I'm talking about, well, here you go:
Anti-gay teacher can't claim charter protection: B.C. court
A high school teacher in British Columbia, punished for writing publicly against homosexuality, is not protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the province's Supreme Court has ruled.
Chris Kempling, a teacher and guidance counsellor in a Quesnel high school said the ruling by the B.C. Supreme Court is "a significant blow to freedom of speech and freedom of religion," denying Christian teachers the right to speak out on controversial issues. Kempling says he intends to appeal the ruling...
Kempling and his supporters took the matter to court, arguing that the charter protected his right to express his Christian beliefs outside the classroom.
Yes, it's all free speech fun and games until someone gets their pinkies slapped, then it's all about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and being protected from the consequences of your actions.
Time for these folks to grow up, and accept that the freedom to publicly hate someone should go hand-in-hand with someone else's freedom to make you suffer for it. Anything else would be hypocritical.
41 comments:
Definitely works for me! And thank you for being so articulate about it!
I have been trying to explain my position on this to some friends who are horrified at what they think of as the "legitimization" of "hate speech." The best I could come up with until now was that I'd rather hear the bigots coming at full volume so it's easier to identify them than not hear them and have them sneak up on me.
Hate crime legislation for thee but not for me?
Hah. The BTs would never get behind this - not if it meant they might actually have to stand behind what they say.
"You're a school teacher and you have a habit of publicly condemning gays? Fine. You're fired."
doing so while on the clock, fine. off the clock? can't touch this.
KEvron
Sorry, kevron, but I disagree. Even if you restrict, say, your gay-bashing to off-hours, the fact that you're a vocal homophobe suggests to me that you shouldn't be in a position of trust and authority to youngsters.
You hate gays? Then you shouldn't be a teacher in the public school system.
Actions. Consequences. Deal with it.
Especially since he's also a guidance counsellor. Good gods! How'd he ever get that job in the first place?
"You hate gays? Then you shouldn't be a teacher in the public school system."
first, i fail to see the corollary. second, i'd rather know what's under the wrapper when i make the purchase. third, can o' worms.
KEvron
"you hate conservatives? then you shouldn't be a teacher in the public school system." see where i'm going with this?
KEvron
I'm with KEv on this. While I agree with your premise, CC, I just don't see how you justify policing someone off the clock.
It's a very slippery slope to fire a someone who never makes a homophobic or bigoted remark while at work but does it when he or she is out for the evening.
I can appreciate the "slippery slope" argument here, but let's be clear that I'm not talking about an occasional lapse -- I'm talking about someone who is relentless in their rasicm or homophobia.
These are the people who make a hobby of public condemnation of entire demographics or lifestyles, then go running to the courts to protect them from any sort of consequence. That's what I'm talking about here.
Obviously, I don't think my original suggestion is going anywhere. I just think it exposes the underlying hypocrisy of the bigots.
"It's a very slippery slope to fire a someone who never makes a homophobic or bigoted remark while at work but does it when he or she is out for the evening."
even slipperier (is that a even word?) to suggest that their views would prevent them from executing their duties competently.
KEvron
A question: is this man an effective guidance counsellor to gay or questioning students if he is known to be hostile to homosexuality, even if "off the clock"?
Would he be an effective guidance counsellor to non-white students if he organized the Stormfront bake-sale on weekends?
If he were a hot-dog vendor, I'd be inclined to cut him more slack. But he's not, and I won't.
I wouldn't buy a hot-dog from him, either.
would he be an effective guidance counsellor to non-progressive students if he organized the canadian cynic bake-sale on weekends?
KEvron
Frighteningly logical and reasonable article CC. Well done.
and i would buy the hotdog, but i'd deep-throat it right in front of him, then toss it back at him and tell him where to stick it.
KEvron
Oh please. There is a difference between holding a political ideology and being black or gay. And if your publicly-held and vociferously expressed ideology out-and-out condemns me for being black or gay, or red-headed for that matter, you have no business playing at counselling blacks, gays or red-heads.
There is a reason that an apparent conflict of interest is seen as as damaging as an actual conflict of interest. Even if Kempling kept his mouth shut at the office and signed up Joe Gay's mum and dad up with the local chapter of PFLAG, he'd still be working against Joe Gay's best interest in every other sphere.
I don't like the HRCs. They are obviously open to abuses like we are seeing with Levant and Steyn. In general, I am in favour of more freedoms, not less, but that clinically academic position gets a lot messier when the Kemplings of the world get their hands on impressionable teenagers.
So, I guess my point is that there are no easy answers, and as much as I'd like to come down cleanly on one side or the other, I can't. I'd like to see the Steyn and Levant complaints laughed out of existence. I say that as a liberal and one who find their opinions thoroughly repulsive. I can distance myself enough to see that the state power currently being deployed against them today could be leveled at me tomorrow.
On the other hand, pricks like Kempling are in a position to do real harm to kids that were me a long time ago. So what the hell do you do with him?
"Oh please. There is a difference between holding a political ideology and being black or gay."
while our opponents might (or might not, but for the sake of the argument....) disagree with "black", i know one or two who would certainly disagree with "gay".
but, hey, it's your can worms.
KEvron
It's a very slippery slope to fire a someone who never makes a homophobic or bigoted remark while at work but does it when he or she is out for the evening.
That's not how children generally absorb the values of adults who have authority over them. They get it through the behaviour the adults model, and in my experience, it's very difficult for a rabid bigot to keep that kind of stuff to off-work hours.
Some work is not sensitive to this kind of thing, some is. I don't like slippery-slope arguments (it is in fact a logical fallacy) and I don't like binaries either.
I'm fine with the status quo; we have laws, a judiciary free from political interference, and avenues of appeal.
...and we also generally don't have hate-bags and retards like Ann Coulter, Melanie Morgan, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, etc. etc. commanding pubic attention in our media with their intellectual pornography either.
and i don't believe a highschool counsellor's mandate should exceed that of making referrals, anyway.
KEvron
I suppose I'm playing devil's advocate with my "slippery slope" argument. The average bigot is rarely capable of turning their bigotry on or off.
"an apparent conflict of interest"
eye of the beholder.
KEvron
An interesting ramification and while my immediate instinct is to jump on board with it wholeheartedly in the interests of “fair play” (or what would seem to be that), I think it would be a mistake to do so. Disposing of the rights that have been established to protect employees from what might well be arbitrary dismissal simply because it suits your retributive sense of justice in certain cases (that might be entirely warranted, I’ll grant you) would be very much a case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. An individual in such circumstances is entitled to a fair adjudication of their particular situation, or in the absence of that, to some compensatory damages upon dismissal. And then of course, there’s the “Can-O-Worms” that KEv spoke of which further complicates matters in terms of separating public and private behaviour/attitudes.
"and we also generally don't have hate-bags and retards like"
don't assume the dynamics in your country are static. you may well find yourself on the receiving end one day, and then your precedents are going to work against you.
KEvron
"So what the hell do you do with him?"
vigilance. but if you drive them into silence, you won't know where to pay the extra attention.
KEvron
don't assume the dynamics in your country are static. you may well find yourself on the receiving end one day, and then your precedents are going to work against you.
Been hearing that for decades. It's not this country that experiences wild mood swings every 10 years or so, when the victims of the last campaign become the persecutors in the current one.
"It's not this country that experiences wild mood swings every 10 years or so, when the victims of the last campaign become the persecutors in the current one."
it's a good thing for us, then, that we haven't enacted wrong-headed legislation to be alternately abused in those supposed cycles....
KEvron
it's a good thing for us, then, that we haven't enacted wrong-headed legislation to be alternately abused in those supposed cycles....
Yeah. You've got enough legislative abuses (constitution-shredding ones) to deal with already. God forbid human rights tribunals infect all that with Stalinistic totalitarianism. After that, why it'd be just hop and a skip to secret prisons, illegal domestic surveillance and torture.
"Yeah. You've got enough legislative abuses (constitution-shredding ones) to deal with already."
right back atcha.
"After that, why it'd be just hop and a skip to secret prisons, illegal domestic surveillance and torture."
don't let our real-world experiences deter you.
KEvron
Well, if you don't really care, that's fine.
It's all shits and giggles, isn't it?
KEvron - vigilance is all very well, but it's what actually got us to this point, and it doesn't answer the "what the hell do you do with him now" question.
Kempling's beliefs include subjecting gays to de-gayifying voodoo. I respect the right of adult self-loathing gays everywhere to subject themselves to "treatment" if they so choose, but I draw the line at having this fruit-loop sitting in his office like a spider waiting for the gay kid to ask his advice - in the public school system.
""what the hell do you do with him now"
you demonstrate that his views are manifested in his performance. or that they are not.
KEvron, not a fan of the "preemptive strike"
"It's all shits and giggles, isn't it?"
lighten up, francis....
KEvron
KEvron -
Kempling's own words: "I refuse to be a false teacher saying that promiscuity is acceptable, perversion is normal, and immorality is simply 'cultural diversity' of which we should be proud."
And the opinion of the judge:
"By publicly linking his private, discriminatory views of homosexuality with his status and professional judgment as a teacher and secondary school counsellor, the appellant called into question his own preparedness to be impartial in the fulfilment of his professional and legal obligations to all students, as well as the impartiality of the school system"
In other words, Kempling was not prepared to be an impartial counsellor, and more than implied that he would be dragging his antediluvian bullshit into the guidance office. How is this in any way a "preemptive strike"?
Ah ti-guy?
...we also generally don't have hate-bags and retards like Ann Coulter, Melanie Morgan, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, etc. etc. commanding pubic attention in our media with their intellectual pornography either.
Rachel Marsden?
"How is this in any way a 'preemptive strike'?"
because it hasn't been proved that, during his tenure, his personal views had effected his performance, but it's assumed that they might.
KEvron
Regarding Kempling, I would suggest that it isn't necessary to demonstrate that his beliefs have already influenced his performance on the job.
The fact that he is publicly homophobic suggests that he is unfit to be a guidance counselor since his public beliefs will clearly drive away any gay students who might otherwise seek counselling.
In short, you won't be able to show that he treats gay students badly, since none of them will come to see him in the first place based on what they know about him.
There's more to bigotry than words. Non-verbal communication is, what, 40% of human communication? The victims of a bigot can get the vibe, whether he behaves himself verbally or not. And there's always the Pygmalion effect to consider.
Kateland has a good post on the subject of Africentric schools I don't agree with her, but an issue she raises--the treatment of her daughter in junior kindergarten--is worth considering in the context of this discussion. How would you prove that the teacher was in fact a bigot (her comment on the telephone after the kid had been taken out of school aside)?
My late mother-in-law (from my first marriage--I don't know the appropriate kinship term) was a schoolteacher with very decided views on those of dusky hue. I am positive that she didn't utter a bigoted word in the classroom, but I happen to know that she had differing expectations of her students, based upon their ethnic origins.
"his public beliefs will clearly drive"
if they will ( i cannot say for certain), then they likely have. the first step to building a case.
"none of them will come to see him in the first place based on what they know about him."
well, then, it a good thing they know his views in advance. of course, if he'd been stiffled from the begining, he'd still be counselling those same students today, and we wouldn't be having this discussion.
KEvron
Seer:
Rachel Marsden?
When was the last time Rachel Marsden was on a Canadian current affairs program? Christ, she got canned from The Toronto Sun.
The loonies don't generally hold up well on that socialist Canuckistanian forum known as the "panel discussion."
I've linked to those cartoons also, does that mean we will be charged with a hate crime...just thinking.ciao
CC, I think you make a very good point, here. And as to the concern about the slippery slope of firing people for speech, I think this already happens, even with the protections that are now in place.
Employment is a complicated relationship. Groups of people have to work together comfortably, and if there is dischord, then performance suffers. Unless measures are taken to solve problems, the situation can quickly escalate until someone is fired with cause. In the situations that Dawg describes about bigot vibes, clearly such a situation would easily develop and, in an ideal world, the bigot that was reluctant to treat his co-workers with respect would get the heave-ho. And often it does work that way.
But the main point is this: I assume that you are largely referring to bloggers (and no points in guessing which particular bloggers you'd like to see affected by this). People who write problematic columns in the mainstream media have their own review mechanisms to deal with. Those who don't have a blog are largely overlooked and can keep their feelings to themselves, but blogs are different. Unless you take some extraordinary measures to protect yourself, blogs are NOT private speech.
I've said it before: never ever post anything on a blog that you wouldn't be comfortable saying at normal volume inside a crowded restaurant. Because in a crowded restaurant, there's no telling who might overhear. And, worse, blogs are like an unlimited tape recorder. The words you wouldn't normally say in public are now publicly accessible. Your co-workers can see it and be offended. Your employer can see it and feel as though you are reflecting badly on the company.
Plenty of companies out there are already pretty uncomfortable about their employees having blogs. I personally have encountered this. A number of them have already gone too far in trying to restrict their employees' activities online, but I think it is reasonable to see the blogosphere as an extension of your public persona, which means that the blogosphere is an extension of your workplace -- both current and future. And if you say something that makes it impossible to continue working at your workplace, you really only have yourself to blame.
CC: In general, I agree with you. Employers should have more freedom to hire and fire whom they wish (not to the point of outright racism, mind you). The "iron ricebowl" is bad for everyone, even the employee.
With regard to the Kempling case, you're missing an important point. The BC Teachers' Federation is not the employer and is nothing like a private organization. It is para-state body whose power to punish Kempling rests on delegated government authority. In effect, it is a branch of government. Neo-corporatism, right? The BCTF's disciplinary process thus raises many of the same issues as the HRC process - state power exercised by a body that far removed from democratic oversight.
It would be different if the school board, the actual employer, were disciplining him. Granted, school boards are also government bodies, but they are local, democratically elected, and competitive (that is, each one has local monopoly on public-school hiring, not a province-wide monopoly like the BCTF).
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