OPINION:
Jackson Local School District in Ohio will have to pay $450,000 to a middle school language arts teacher who was told by administrators to resign after she cited religious and moral objections as the reason for refusing to call two students by names that differed from their official identities — names that were chosen to reflect their genders of choice.
A win for religious freedom. A win for sanity. A loss for LGBTQ nuttiness. It’d be great if this decision reverberates throughout America’s public school systems and chills administrations everywhere from forcing teachers to bow to psychologically damaged children.
In the case of Jackson Local, though, it probably won’t change a thing. School officials are already saying they’re not going to shift policy. And they have the luxury of standing firm because as public servants, they’re not held personally accountable for their actions.
None of the named defendants — not the superintendent, not the school board, not the curriculum director, not the principal — have to shell out the $450,000 themselves. The school’s insurance carrier, Liberty Mutual of Boston, is picking up that tab, CantonRep.com reported. That means tax payers may have to eventually pay more for insurance; carriers almost always raise rates to reflect changing, increased risks. But on personal pocket book costs, the defendants skate. They get to stay on their high horses and keep their moral righteousness grounds. And that is exactly what they are doing.
“There will be no policy changes at Jackson schools as a result of the agreement,” CantonRep.com wrote, citing the school’s attorney, Kristen Moore, and the district’s response to the $450,000 settlement with teacher Vivian Geraghty.
No change. No change?
“The Jackson Local School District is committed to cultivating a learning environment where every student feels supported, valued and safe,” Board of Education President Tonya Wright said in a statement.
Well, isn’t that special.
It’s really astonishing the lengths some will go toward protecting the transgender movement — even to the point of blowing almost half a million dollars to settle suits brought by those who refuse to advance the lie; even to the point of insisting on the continuation of the lie, blown $450,000 de danged; even to the point of allowing little kids — or enabling little kids! — to hold some sort of deranged power over the adults who are supposed to be in charge, and give them carte blanche to lie, lie, lie, and all the while exploit their mental illness.
The LGBTQ movement may be small. Minuscule, in fact. But it’s grown powerful and influential. It’s driven by demonic forces that care nothing for logic and reason and common sense, and even less for godly virtues that include truth and absolutes, and that instead seek only to destroy — to destroy the family unit; to destroy God’s creations; to destroy humanity itself, if possible. After all, the ability for two men to procreate is zero; similarly for two women. So-called transitioning youth can transition all they like and demand to be called one of the many made-up pronouns of the LGBTQ lingo all they like. But when it comes to having kids, it doesn’t change biology. It doesn’t change God’s ordained roles for male and female. It doesn’t change God’s creation of males versus females and the chromosomes He designed as distinguishing factors of the two sexes.
“The school tried to force Vivian to accept and repeat the school’s viewpoint on issues that go to the foundation of morality and human identity, like what makes us male or female, by ordering her to personally participate in the social transition of her students,” said Logan Spena, legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, the Arizona-based nonprofit that defended Geraghty.
“The First Amendment prohibits that abuse of power, and Jackson Local School District officials have learned that comes at a steep cost,” Spena added, The Hill wrote.
If only.
Ideally, when one school system is slapped back from immorally pushing the idea that boys can become girls and girls can become boys and additionally, compelling others to participate in that lie, then other school systems would refrain from trying the same — until all the school systems in America were once again back in the business of teaching children. But schools have become breeding grounds for socialist and Marxist propaganda. Teachers’ unions have become soldiers for Democrat Party operations, which include spreading the collectivist mindset among the next generation of American leaders. America’s once great education system has fallen on the sword of secularism and atheism and anti-West teachings, and where schools once produced critically thinking, creativity-driven and morally compassed young men and women, they now spit forth good little political activists who can be used by the far left to further ungodly, unconstitutional and unAmerican agendas throughout society.
As part of that, the Big LGBTQ lie must go forth at all costs, even to the point of sacrificing religious liberty; even to the point of sacrificing truth; even to the point of sacrificing the most innocent and vulnerable — the children.
The defendants in Geraghty’s case ought to be fired, or at the least, retrained and allowed to serve but only after a new district policy is put in place to recognize the right of teachers and staffers and students to stand firm on truth and refuse to play the LGBTQ games.
They weren’t. They won’t be. This sets the stage for another suit — another pay-out. And that sets the stage for other schools around the nation to keep up the LGBTQ lies in their own hallways and classrooms and bathrooms and locker rooms.
The incoming Donald Trump administration must use every regulatory and political tool at its disposal to put a stop to this exploitation of America’s youth. Reason and polite discourse and appeals to common sense aren’t working. Neither, apparently, are law suits. A speedy top-down course correction is the only way to halt this LGBTQ evil in its tracks.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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