There's another thoughtful article on the local case I mentioned earlier this week about a student who wore an "Homosexuality is Shameful" T-Shirt to school the day after a Gay/Lesbian sponsored "Day of Silence." The piece by Dale Carpenter makes the argument that current law, the Tinker case dealing with Vietnam-era anti-war protests, is bad precedent and the Supreme Court should "fix" it by granting schoolteachers and administrators greater latitude over determining what is disruptive and what is not.

I think that this is a mistake, because it's exactly what happened in this case and it reeks of viewpoint discrimination. The "Day of Silence" was, if not sponsored, condoned by the school administration through its inaction, however, a far less open and widespread counterprotest by a single student who merely wore his opinion on his T-shirt was quickly quashed.

I would not want to allow schools to banish all ways of expressing certain viewpoints, including the viewpoints that homosexuality is wrong, that blacks are inferior, or that women should remain at home. It should be permissible even to say that homosexuality is "shameful" in the context of, say, a classroom discussion of sexual morality. There should be times and places for expressing political views in schools; but that time is not all day and that place is not in the middle of a classroom on another topic. Schools should be given considerable latitude – certainly more than Tinker seems to give them – to ensure that students focus on the curriculum.

Carpenter is focusing on the kid's T-shirt, which was worn "all day." Fine, but the "Day of Silence" was an all-day event also.

I've said it before: You've got to allow both, or you allow neither. Frankly, I think the best method right now for ensuring that actual learning goes on in the schools may be the "neither" option.

In a perfect world, I'd much rather prefer to allow the "both" option. But, after reading through many of the comments responding to Carpenter's post, it's clear that there are far too many former '60s free-speech radicals who have decided that traditional Christian views are beyond the pale and not worthy of the same level of First Amendment protection as are their progressive views.

Liberals nowadays praise tolerance, but they really don't know what tolerance means. I'm tolerant of homosexuals -- I believe that homosexual behavior is wrong, but I don't go around condemning them, berating them or knocking walls over on them. What liberals are really demanding is acceptance -- they want me to say that it's all right, there's absolutely nothing wrong with homosexuality.

That I cannot do.

And to demand that of me as a condition of allowing me to speak, well that is antithetical to the First Amendment no matter how you frame your progressive values.

Once upon a time liberals took pride in Voltaire's ("I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.") attitude towards freedom of speech and the acted like they meant it. No more.