All that stuff

Bert Chapman is a dick.

Bert Chapman is a homophobe, and a bigot and should be exiled.

I hate him and I've never met him.

Bert Chapman has every right to express his views.

And I will stand right next to him and defend his right to do so.

Bert Chapman stands for everything I hate.

He's religious, He's conservative, He's a bigot, He's a homophobe, He's ill-informed,and he manipulates facts to make his weak-ass case to discriminate against gays because it costs too much.

Even though he's a librarian he's a huge part of the problem with the education system. It should not matter what education costs. It should be our primary concern.

But right now, being the fools we apparently are, we're all getting bogged down in a debate about whether Bert has the right to say these things and keep his job.

Let's pose the question: "Would you like someone to come along and tell you that you cannot express your views publicly because they're an embarrassment to your employer, therefore you do not have the right to do so?"

Personally I'd go ape-shit.

I'd likely throw my academic career right out the fucking window and then devote the remainder of my days to preventing that from happening to anyone else.

Bert Chapman is a dick.

Bert Chapman can say whatever the fuck he wants.

Cause when it's my turn I'm gonna say whatever the fuck I want and no one is gonna stop me.

No one should be afraid of losing their job because they express their personal views.

Richard Rothstein at Proceed At Your own Risk makes the case that if Chapman would substitute the word homosexual with the word Negro, and the acronym AIDS for Cardio-vascular disease, he'd be out on his librariatic ass the day he posted it.

Sadly, he's probably right. But doesn't that make the case that we're censoring what we don't like and giving tacit approval to what we agree with to avoid having confrontations of our own?

The best part of these debates is that we get to refine the rules as we go.

No we shouldn't be allowing discrimination against anyone, gay, straight, black, white, green, bigot, liberal, librarian, illiterate. Doesn't matter.

But this is about a larger matter all of a sudden. The right to say it.

I'm recently had a debate with a student over free speech and interpretation.

We were analyzing A Doll's House, by Henrik Ibsen. I asked what the predominate religious influence in Norway was in 1890, and the answer was, Christian. I said,
"So the Norwegians had bought into the Christianity thing and it figured heavily into their social and political attitudes."

She muttered from the back of the room, "What's THAT supposed to mean?"

I said, "What's what supposed to mean?"

"They bought into the whole Christianity thing." she replied.

"Is religion not a choice?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" she asked, now not sure she wants to have this debate with me.

"Does one not choose to be a Lutheran, a Methodist, an Episcopalian, a Catholic, a Baptist, or even a Buddhist?" I asked.

"Well, yes." She replied even more quietly than before.

"Then does it not follow that Christianity, of whatever variety, is a choice and one invests in it in many ways?" I asked.

"Sure." Was the plaintive response.

"Then let's not develop a chip on our shoulder every time someone mentions religion. It figures heavily into almost all of our history, right or wrong." I said.

"Yeah, but it doesn't have to be insulting." A challenge. It's like dueling with an unarmed man.

"What's insulting about mentioning a society's investment in a religious belief?" I asked.

"Well, nothing, but it sounded like you were saying it was a bad thing." She said.

"How so?"

"...i don't know, never mind."

Unfortunately she hasn't been back to class since that encounter. but instead of defending my right to say what she perceives as a slam against Christianity, and Gods know I censor myself ALL THE TIME in that regard in class, she chooses to not participate in the class any longer. This doesn't hurt me, it hurts her, and it hurts the process of free speech. If she'd stand up and state her beliefs she'd get heard, but running away from a challenge is the new apathy. So in an argument that never existed censorship wins. And it's wrong.

This brings me back to my old wheeze that our education system does not impress upon it's students their responsibility to defend the Constitution. That, in all likelihood most of them don't even understand the constitution. And sadly after 4th grade history never look at the document again.

Bert Chapman has the right to spew his bigotry and hate. And we have the responsibility to stand up to him.

And so it goes:

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