The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns

john's comment in the Lack Of Freedom In Teaching article:

"The comments above are thoughtful, but I think miss the point in several major ways.

In the first place, Dr. Kempling's problems are hardly the result of the "community's outrage" at his opinions. Polls show that even in Canada, gay marriage does not have majority support. The BCTF's attempt to silence and intimidate Dr. Kempling and the collusion of the courts in this are hardly the result of the Canadian people's outcry against his views. Dr. Kempling's crime lies in offending the political elite by expressing views held by millions of other Canadians.

Secondly, the lumping together of what a teacher does in his or her off-hours with what a teacher does during a student-teacher conference seems like a huge stretch. Yes, Dr. Kempling mentioned in his letters that he was an educator, but this is hardly the same as arguing directly to his students and their parents while in the workplace. The notion that a teacher must always reflect the party line in all his utterances smacks of totalitarianism. (And this is not to imply that Dr. Kempling should not have the right to express his views in a responsible way within the classroom. As the parent of 3 children, I can testify to the endless propagandizing by individual teachers for their generally leftist views on any number of subjects. It seems like, at a minimum, conservative educators should have the same rights.)

Finally, while the hypocracy of the left's supposed committment to free speech has been endlessly documented, this case is particularly illustrative of it. When, during the 1950s teachers lost their jobs or were otherwise sanctioned here in the US for their membership in the Soviet-sponsored conspiracy known as the Communist Party, the left howled (and still howls) over the alleged "witch hunt" (never mind the fact that if there was ever a case in which community outrage supported the dismissal of the offending teachers, this was it). Yet the same people who ring their hands today over the "repression" directed against those active supporters of the bloodiest totalitarian dictatorship the world has known are the same ones who are ready to silence even such moderate dissenters on the right as Dr. Kempling without the slightest hesitation."

Sam's Response:

Do you really think that Canada shares the seemingly ultra-conservative view on gay marriage that Kempling does? No. Polls are subjective, and I don’t particularly follow those. Further, as a teacher, his religious slant on the topic doesn’t sit well with much of Canada either, and perhaps that’s another reason why the BCTF doesn’t support his outward view. Teachers are not supposed to be outwardly religious in any way; those are their personal perspectives that they are to keep to themselves because public schools are non-secular. Like superintendent Chalmers says on The Simpsons: "Religion has no place in public schools the way facts have no place in organized religion." A lot of people can understand this subtly sarcastic stab at the education system’s bureaucracy. But, do you think that Canada shares the evidently ultra-liberal view that gay marriage is acceptable? No, as well. The majority of Canada stays lukewarm somewhere in the middle, and this appears exactly where the BCTF would like to stay on the topic. This is why I see the BCTF as holding similar views on the issue as the community does.

Moreover, as “totalitarian� as it may sound, it is what it is when teachers have to be submissive rather than publicly aggressive on issues. Teachers are to be seen and not heard. I’m not saying that I agree with it, I’m saying that it is what it is.

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