It appears that a principal at Ponce de Leon High School felt that he had made an important discovery himself in Florida. Principal David Davis was shocked when a student came to him about being harassed about being a lesbian. It was not the harassment but the lesbian part that shocked Davis who immediately lectured the girl on her immoral lifestyle, told her to stay away from children, and then outed her to her parents.
Davis’ outrageous treatment of the girl, known only as Jane Doe, prompted a quiet protest from other students. Showing far more sense and compassion than the school, the students became to well gay pride symbols in solidarity. Davis responded by allegedly questioning the sexuality of the other students and suspending some of them.
The American Civil Liberties Union successfully sued the district and Davis was demoted. What is most alarming is that you cannot be fired for engaging in raw discrimination and harassment on the basis of sexual orientation — not to mention interjecting your own religious views into a school setting.
The result makes more sense when you read the response of Steve Griffin, Holmes County’s school superintendent: “We are a small, rural district in the Bible Belt with strong Christian beliefs and feel like homosexuality is wrong.” Griffin always keeps a bible on his desk and has framed Scriptures in his office to greet students and parents who want to speak with him. Given his boss, it is curious that Davis wasn’t promoted over the incident.
Due to the leadership of Griffin and Davis, the small school district will pay not just $325,000 in fees but its own legal costs and fees. Notably, the school district fought the case, seeking to establish that this was not a violation of the rights of these students. It appears that Griffin does not have a copy of the Constitution featured on his wall.
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Gyges,
I am speaking literally. And I feel the same way. He had many interesting points as does the renamed poster. I had suspected this for a while, but today all the same things I remember from before are front and center. I hope he moderates because he has much to offer. I also hope others do not attack as before. That was ugly and then things escalated completely out of control. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!
Jill,
I don’t know if you’re speaking literally or metaphorically, but I actually think that you’re literally right. Look at the posting style, his mask has slipped at little of late. If you were speaking literally my hat’s off to you for figuring it out first. If I’m right it doesn’t change anything, but is still nice to know. I actually would have liked a less verbose and repetitive BB, I thought that he had his moments.
Jill,
You read my posts right. I scanned your link briefly and am planning on checking it out further later on. It looked interesting.
P.S.
Ixnay on the odedcay essagesmay.
“I tend to feel more optimistic after looking at our ancestry.”
Gyges,
Couldn’t agree with you more. Don’t want to go Candide on you but right now is the best time in human history, as bad as it is.
“I do not think it is a part of humanity by nature, but by nurture. To my way of understanding it came late in the scheme of human/hominid history.”
Jill,
Perhaps, but when I look at the societal structure of Gorillas and Chimps, it seems awfully human to me in the sense of centralized power and the position of females. The Bonobo’s being an exception.
Apply it to humanity and what do you get? Henry Kissinger dating Jill St.John.
Sorry to butt into a fascinating dialog you two, but you both were so lucid on a topic I find so interesting. Carry on.
Mike
Gyges,
I think Bartlebee is back. Remember how it got very frustrating to argue with someone with whom you agreed on many points? There’s a lot of similarity to another poster.
Jill
Hi Mike,
Gyges and I disagree on the hard-wiring of hierarchy. I do not think it is a part of humanity by nature, but by nurture. To my way of understanding it came late in the scheme of human/hominid history. I hope I am not misrepresenting Gyges here but I think he feels it is hard-wired. We seldom disagree but here, I think we do!
Jill
Mike,
Of course you’re right, we’ve only got educated guesses about most of this subject. Which is probably why amateurs like us can debate like this.
I tend to feel more optimistic after looking at our ancestry. Look how far from the extreme border warfare of our ancestors we have come (even if you only go back 5,000 years). And look at how quickly we’ve done it, especially compared to the eons upon eons it took us to become. We still might have some ingrained instincts to overcome, but I have a belief that we’ll overcome then.
Gyges & Jill,
I agree that looking at our ancestral relatives and especially seeing their descendants today, the tendency toward hierarchical structures are probably hard wired into us. Nevertheless, I am not convinced the nature of a given hierarchy, in the sense of a will to power, in other species and humans is in anyway a known quantity.
We have all watched anthropological and archaeological theories come and go, since they are relatively new sciences (arts?) and their interpretations of their discoveries are in no way settled issues. As an example look at the Dead Sea Scrolls and the fact that while initially thought to be the work of Essenes, Quamran may well have served other purposes. The same holds true with anthropological interpretations an example being the argument about the fate of the Neanderthals.
I am fascinated by both of these sciences, though I am far from being an expert about them. To me they are faced with the dilemma of finding it hard to look outside their box of interpretive assumptions, and the evidence with which they deal is far too fragmentary. This leaves us, I think, only able to speak with some confidence about the religion/power issue for the last 5,000 years (back to Sumer) of the human historic/religious record.
While religion no doubt developed in part as a means of ordering society and in that sense became a partner to established power, it also must have come into being to as a way to explain death and with it life’s purpose. Which gets back to why I used infected. Buddhism, a belief that came into being to relieve life’s suffering, at times has been infected by leaders who’ve used it to inflict even greater suffering. Buddhism in and of itself doesn’t lend itself to violence, but any religious/philosophical belief is open to perversion
I should have put in a link to what I meant.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4418363.stm
I’m also speaking about graves found in Crete about 8000 BCE. There doesn’t seem to be much of any social stratification until later at this site. And I told you I ain’t related to no monkey!
P.S. If this comes up twice, sorry. When I hit submit I was taken to the post on the Florida principal so I’m not cetain what’s going on.
Jill,
“New” “old” were used as relative terms. I meant that the cultures developed that aspect of their social structure, instead of it being “handed down” from earlier societies.
I was talking about the Pan genus specifically because they’re closely enough related to humans that if it weren’t for social pressure, they’d probably be put in the same Genus as humans. They also share and take care of their sick and injured. That’s not the same as not having a dominate\submissive social structure. It’s actually one of the ways that a “leader” stays in power, by rewarding those who support them. That could either be by giving them food, or by making sure that their relatives get looked after.