Update on the Student Who Said ‘Homosexuality Is Wrong’ in His German Class

No surprise here.

Stories like this are hard to gauge because it isn’t just what was said, but how it was said paired with the context of how the student and teacher have interacted in the past.

That said, it seems like the student was leading the class discussion down a path to his own opinion of homosexual relationships for the purpose of throwing out confrontational statements. If this behavior occurs frequently, then I can see him possibly being suspended for frequent abduction of discussions for the purpose of attacking/ irritating the teacher into a confrontation. In and of itself, high school students trying to verbally challenge and irritate potentially disliked teachers vocally in class is fairly common if my own high school memories stand true. What makes this incident news is the particular subject the student chose to poke at with a stick, paired with the infamous ‘everyone is attacking us’ mentality some wide spread religious groups seem to have, justified or not. 

He hasn’t been flip-flopping back and forth; he’s been giving these yahoos the benefit of the doubt even though they don’t deserve it. Both stories were presented in the light of “this the the evidence presented – it’s probably not the whole story, but let’s see what we can learn from it until more evidence is presented.”

I think that the ability to see that there may be more to a story that your preferences or politics or point of view AND reserve judgement is one of Hemant’s biggest blogging virtues.

I’m sure many of the christians’ sites are acting victimized by what happened.  They never stop to wonder why they get picked on.  Perhaps it’s because of your bigoted views :-O REVELATION!

I don’t think Mehta has been biased one way or another. Simply covering the story and updating as new info has come out. From what we knew the first round I would say his opinions were dead on. Normally I don’t like the way he handles most stories like this but he’s done a nice job of being balanced I feel. This coming from a Christian conservative.

As a teacher, I have seen students try to ask baited question or toss out loaded statements. I’ve never had to send someone to the office for it though. But then again, it sounds like he might be a repeat offender. I’m not there so I can’t judge that.

But as for Mehta’s coverage on this one so far: A-. I say innocent until proven guilty is always the way to go. I’m guessing the story’s not over yet though.

Uh, no – he says “let’s wait to have all the info before jumping to conclusions” – as any rational, skeptical person would do. Saying that Hemant always “defends the homophobe, not the homosexual” is inaccurate & hyperbolic.

That’s true, except that he didn’t wait. He defended him at first and came to the conclusion that the suspension was wrong.

Waiting would have been reporting the incident but staying neutral

^Agreed. The whole situation will be hopelessly politicized beyond recognition by all sides unfortunately.

The fact that the teacher is perceived as being gay sheds new light on this incident. Now, I’m more inclined to think the fundy student was purposely being an ass and deserved suspension.

What this brings up is standard school district policies of not commenting on ongoing cases and not allowing teachers or other personnel to comment. From a legal standpoint this is standard and good advice, but it results in a media firestorm when the other party can and will say anything they want to in the press. The right wing groups who start these things know this, so they get out in front of the media and win the public opinion battle early, even getting Hemant to weigh in on what is probably the wrong side. And that’s probably all they care about. They may lose in court, or before the school board, or wherever, but as long as they can add to their ongoing story about the homosexual agenda, or the atheist agenda, or the war on Christmas, they’ve won the only battle they care about. This teacher needs to be able to get his full story out to the press early. If his lawyers want to vet the story first, so be it, but they need to move. In all likelihood it is not his lawyers (if he has any), but the school district keeping the muzzle on him. And that is bad for the school district and bad for the teacher. It’s the old media approach and it needs to end.

Can we simply drop the word homophobia unless its actually true? I’m pretty sure there aren’t that many people that are actually, literally scared of same-sex relationships. You will find people that do not believe they are moral, but really? People actually being scared of them? 

Maybe he just sees the best in people rather than assumes the worst.

Except he assumed the worst on the part of the teacher.

Pronunciation:/ˈfəʊbɪə/
noun
an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something:

I fucking HATE that “but I am not afraid of gays” response from homophobes.

Xenophobia doesn’t mean doesn’t normally mean “fear of strangers” either, and it’s about the best-established “phobia” word around.  Take it as a lesson from Greek that fear and hatred are close relatives.

 So the options are “extreme aversion”, “extreme fear”, “irrational aversion” and “irrational fear”.

Classical phobias, the ones that this definition are based upon, are not something which we consider people morally deficient for.   That they are naturally fearful of snakes, or cotton balls, for instance is not a choice, but part of who they are, just like sexual preference is part of who homosexuals are.    Obviously being afraid of snakes is not a matter of irrationality unless the snake is the harmless kind.  Obviously cotton balls are no threat so the fear is irrational.

Some phobias are inborn and some are learned responses to traumatic events.

This is quite distinct from say bigotry.

Certainly one would expect ophidiophobes to rip pictures of snakes off the walls of classrooms.    One would also expect them to make all sorts of objections to being around snakes, for instance being against the biology teacher keeping them in the school.

If homophobia is really a phobia then perhaps you should stop persecuting these people for what amounts to inborn aversions over which they have no control.

We really need some suffix that indicates bigotry.

Perhaps heteroism?

I thought I saw a complain that he was pushing a homosexual agenda in his classroom.    Pictures of men kissing stuck on the wall tend to reinforce that claim.

It may be that he was making a point of trying to educate these ignorant kids on homosexuality and they were pushing back. 

Yeah, I get flamed by both sides when I try to talk reasonably.   Many don’t care about understanding things from the position of the other side, nor taking a more nuanced view of their own position.

i think hemant said that IF the student was telling the truth the teacher was wrong and that the story was one sided in favor of Ary.  i think saying he weighed in on the “wrong” side is a bit incorrect but i liked the rest of your post. 

it would seem to me that everything he said in the previous post still applies.  the IF statement is still true,  the fact that Ary was not telling the truth does not change its validity.

i think the suffix phobia in homophobia is used correctly.  arachnophobia is not some magical inate biologically programmed fear of spiders.  a baby doesnt know what a spider is or how to feel about them.  it is a learned response from the existance of spiders picked up over time from those around them.

people scared of spiders who rip up posters doesn’t make us as angry becuase we dont care about the feelings of spiders.  though if it took us a long time to make the poster we might be a bit peturbed. 

when homophobic people  show their aggression towards the thing they fear we care becuase we care about the victims.  

having a phobia does not make you not responsible for you actions.  if an arachnaphobe mr. A killed a man mr.B who kept spiders in his own home as pets becuase that was his hobby we would have reason to be upset.

Once again, he does cast blame on the teacher without having all the evidence.  “Reserving judgement” != “blame one side”.  He post clearly has a tenative judgement, it is right there in the title of the post.  “The Student Who Said ‘Being a Homosexual is Wrong’ Didn’t Deserve To Be Suspended”.  That is a judgement.  He readily admitted he didn’t have all the facts, and the story seemed suspicious, but he still chose to make a judgement anyway.  

I wholly agree reserving judgement was the right thing to do in that circumstance.  But it is definitely NOT what Hermant did, he says right in the title of the post that he thinks the teacher was wrong.

Separating desire and action isn’t any less ridiculous and inhuman. For
anyone but a Catholic priest, one naturally follows the other.

Suppressing one’s  sexuality isn’t a healthy way to live for most
people. Especially when, like for many of these evangelical nutjobs,  it is combined with creating a fake heterosexual persona.

I would add that the press always seems to get some great soundbites out of Mehta before he forms a public opinion that is actually based on the facts. Given the consistent pattern, one wonders if this approach isn’t intentional: He is  presented with a controversial issue regarding the rights of homosexuals and/or children, takes the side opposing the homosexuals and/or children, provides quotes to the media backing up that position, and then quietly retracts on his personal blog when the facts come in. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Gay students are on their own.

Sure, becuase Hemant has no history of supporting gay students…

Point being? Past Hemant does not justify present Hemant.

But what rights are he defending here? In every case mentioned in the thread comments and in the post above the issue is that he defended “speech rights” before he had enough information to determine whether the “speech rights” even existed in each particular scenario. I strongly object to the notion that he is doing anybody’s free speech rights any favors by jumping ill-informed to the defense of bigots who are clearly in the wrong when submitted to closer scrutiny.

In each case when he wants to give the benefit of the doubt in the absence of complete evidence, he has sided with the religious person each time. Hemant is the one throwing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater in throwing gay kids under the bus during his attempt to draw media attention to how conciliatory atheists (specifically Hemant Mehta, Atheist) can be.

At least people know that if they make news bullying gay people, Hemant will be there to defend their free speech. I imagine that all the gay kids out there will take great comfort in knowing that free speech is being so vehemently defended on their behalf.

The example was snakes and it is an inborn fear.

Yes, having a phobia can make one not responsible for ones actions.    If you were to walk up to someone who you know has a phobia of spiders with one hidden in your closed fist then open it in front of him then he would not be necessarily responsible for his actions.

Motive, mens rea, matters in such situations.   If you were on a subway platform and he pushed you back to get the spider away from him (in his panic) and you died on the tracks we wouldn’t hold him responsible.

He might have reacted by jumping onto the tracks, and since you knew he had the phobia, we would charge you with manslaughter.

Nonsense.   Liking food doesn’t necessarily lead to overeating.   Desiring a car doesn’t neccesarily lead to stealing it.  Etc.

“Suppressing one’s  sexuality isn’t a healthy way to live for most people.”

It is if you are a pedophile, or attracted to women who refuse you.

Besides the argument isn’t about if it’s healthy or not.   They are concerned whether it gets you into heaven or hell.   From their perspective, their world view, that is the issue.   It’s the act that gets you into hell, not the attraction.  So from their perspective it is a choice that has consequences.

There are many possible choices where there are both good and bad consequences.   Their position would be that it’s not “healthy” to get yourself sent to hell, despite the 15 minutes of sexual pleasure.

Reserving judgment until the facts were in was the only wise thing to do.  That said, of course in some cases there’s misbehavior on the part of teachers, & sometimes on the part of students.  And, sometimes, both.

I had a physics professor at my university who wasted precious class time *at least* once a week (out of three classes) orating on the subject of ‘black helicopters’ and such.  I’d say it was an average of 20 minutes of class time per incident.  He didn’t make much sense at all & was obviously paranoid & delusional.  I described the behavior in my end-of-semester evaluation which went to the department head.  The fellow, though well-meaning, shouldn’t have been doing that.  Perhaps fortunately, he was obviously near or at retirement age.  I hope that was his last semester teaching!

On the other hand, the most homophobic/gay hating student I knew came out of the closet about ten years after graduation… not that an attempt to deny & cover up sexual orientation is any excuse for gay-bashing. 

The difference here is that we are not talking about a fear nor aversion to spiders or snakes, but to another of your own species who has done no harm to the person who has the phobia.

People were once deeply fearful of electricity, but have since grown used to it being everywhere.  Wouldn’t teaching someone to fear or have an aversion for electricity would be considered quite out-moded and irrational.  Homophobia – a societal / cultural condition – is frankly no different.  Using a book as an excuse is still an excuse.  Until one of these bible-thumpers can show me how real harm has been done to them or society through the existance of homosexuals in our midst, they need to keep their religion – a “personal relationship with God” – personal.  Stop telling the rest of us how we’re supposed to agree with their misguided interpretation of their own holy book, in which I am not required to believe.  

One would have to be in real love with food or a car to marry it.  We’re not talking about inanimate objects; we’re talking about real people.  Your argument is a poor attempt to dehumanize the real people affected.