Pushback: Lawsuit by teacher fired for his opinions to be heard by VA Supreme Court
Peter Vlaming
Peter Vlaming was a successful French teacher in the West Point School District in Virgina in 2018, until he was fired for refusing to use male pronouns demanded by a female student.
In 2018, one of Peter’s female students decided to identify as male.
Peter went out of his way to accommodate this student. He said he would use the student’s preferred male-sounding name and avoid using pronouns.
But Peter simply could not use male pronouns for a female student because it would contradict his core beliefs. This was about more than just pronouns; it was about what pronouns mean. In speech, after all, pronouns identify us as either male or female.
Peter couldn’t in good conscience use male pronouns to identify a female student. At the same time, he made it clear that he wanted to work with the student by avoiding pronouns that may cause offense.
But that wasn’t good enough for the school district. It didn’t care about how Peter treated the student. It was on a crusade for conformity. It wanted to force Peter to speak words he disagreed with by using pronouns for the student—even when that student was not present. [emphasis in original]
In 2019, he sued, represented by lawyers from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), and that case has since been slowly winding its way through the courts. In 2021, after the Circuit Court for King William County dismissed the case, the ADL appealed. This month the Virginia Supreme Court accepted that appeal and agreed to hear the case.
It is one thing if a person wants to make believe he or she is a different sex than their biological genes. This might be irrational and counter-factual, but in a free society, as long as that person harms no one it is his or hers right to do so. To force others however to endorse that decision is authoritarian and wrong. Others have the right to disagree, and to say so. This effort by the sexually perverse community to enforce their beliefs by government edict must stop.
This case also illustrates that this effort has been going on for years, with most Americans refusing to face it or deciding to look the other way, in order to go along to get along. Only in the past two years, since the Wuhan panic made the authoritarian goals of the left blatantly obvious, have Americans finally begun to notice. Whether that recognition is in time to save freedom, or too late, remains an open question. Fixing things now will certainly be more difficult because we did not act sooner.
Nonetheless, kudos to Vlaming for standing up for his right to speak his mind, as he sees fit, not as some government official orders him to. Sadly however I am not hopeful for his lawsuit. The legal rulings in his case up to now appear designed to interpret the law as narrowly as possible so as to defeat his effort. Whether the Virginia Supreme Court will do different remains unknown.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
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2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
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4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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Peter Vlaming
Peter Vlaming was a successful French teacher in the West Point School District in Virgina in 2018, until he was fired for refusing to use male pronouns demanded by a female student.
In 2018, one of Peter’s female students decided to identify as male.
Peter went out of his way to accommodate this student. He said he would use the student’s preferred male-sounding name and avoid using pronouns.
But Peter simply could not use male pronouns for a female student because it would contradict his core beliefs. This was about more than just pronouns; it was about what pronouns mean. In speech, after all, pronouns identify us as either male or female.
Peter couldn’t in good conscience use male pronouns to identify a female student. At the same time, he made it clear that he wanted to work with the student by avoiding pronouns that may cause offense.
But that wasn’t good enough for the school district. It didn’t care about how Peter treated the student. It was on a crusade for conformity. It wanted to force Peter to speak words he disagreed with by using pronouns for the student—even when that student was not present. [emphasis in original]
In 2019, he sued, represented by lawyers from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), and that case has since been slowly winding its way through the courts. In 2021, after the Circuit Court for King William County dismissed the case, the ADL appealed. This month the Virginia Supreme Court accepted that appeal and agreed to hear the case.
It is one thing if a person wants to make believe he or she is a different sex than their biological genes. This might be irrational and counter-factual, but in a free society, as long as that person harms no one it is his or hers right to do so. To force others however to endorse that decision is authoritarian and wrong. Others have the right to disagree, and to say so. This effort by the sexually perverse community to enforce their beliefs by government edict must stop.
This case also illustrates that this effort has been going on for years, with most Americans refusing to face it or deciding to look the other way, in order to go along to get along. Only in the past two years, since the Wuhan panic made the authoritarian goals of the left blatantly obvious, have Americans finally begun to notice. Whether that recognition is in time to save freedom, or too late, remains an open question. Fixing things now will certainly be more difficult because we did not act sooner.
Nonetheless, kudos to Vlaming for standing up for his right to speak his mind, as he sees fit, not as some government official orders him to. Sadly however I am not hopeful for his lawsuit. The legal rulings in his case up to now appear designed to interpret the law as narrowly as possible so as to defeat his effort. Whether the Virginia Supreme Court will do different remains unknown.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Western Civilization’s 20th & 21st centuries flight from reason has reached levels of absurdity it was always destined to achieve if left to metastasize.
We now “accept” the denial or reality in favor of emotion, to the point where something as incontestable (by perception and conception) as sexual gender, is evaded.
Biological sex has become “fungible!”
Sometimes Bill Mahre (American Liberal Political Animal) hits it out of the park.
Language warning, remember its Bill Maher and he is on cable: https://youtu.be/05Q1Bzg5zTY
Bill Maher being a more rational American Liberal, which is a more acceptable and tolerable American political animal IMO eviscerates the woke, politically correct radical Left which is fundamentally based in Marxist philosophy and seeks to destroy America and its Constitution in order that they be able in their collective wisdom to rewrite it. (And that is some crazy assed wisdom.)
Politically I do not always agree with Maher, not by a long shot but he has an ability and a talent for calling out the BS (Bovine Swill) that is presented by those on the extreme radical Left (Or Right) who have come into their own in America and present themselves as rational, good and necessary thinkers. They in fact are the enemies of the Constitution because it was the concept of and was instituted by men who primarily had white skin. They state that the Constitution is trash and needs to go. (Uh! Get over it already.)
I was in conversation with a very good female gay friend who I love just the other night who came to talk to me about some things going on in the world which she was happy to inform me that we agree on. And inevitably when that kind of conversation goes down if you are talking to me, I am compelled to share my interpretation of what exactly the Constitution is and what it structures and why. Just so everyone is on the same page. It becomes a mini seminar. And most times my interpretation is very well received and understood by all. (It’s really not as unpleasant as it sounds :)
And the subject came up of the “White” man nature of the origin of the Constitution. And in the end, we agreed that what the Constitution was at its beginning, written by those “evil” men with white skin for the most part, is not what we have today. And what the Constitution has evolved to be today, good bad or otherwise, from what it was originally is much more inclusive and empowering for the vast majority and all concerned in America.
The Constitution works and is in full force and is operational as the cleansing political warfare that it structures in order that the politically empowered be revealed to the people rages on.
Progress was made, the Constitution does not need to be thrown out the window and rewritten. The methods for changing and evolving it exists within the document itself. Is it perfect? No, but it’s the best that there is hands down.
And IMO it certainly does not need to be rewritten and or “Improved” by a bunch of Marxist philosophy based radicals who find themselves empowered today whose handy work Mr. Maher is so cuttingly and insightfully shredding and commenting on.
There is hope America, as long as we are willing to face ourselves and have the conversation.
I DIDNT THIN SO
(Copy and share with a friend)
I do not have a problem with this news item below. (As long as she is not an activist and legislating from the bench)
https://news.yahoo.com/california-makes-history-first-openly-033358956.html
I do however have a problem with this: https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/cj/files/what-lia-thomas-means.jpg
There is a vast difference between the capacity of a man or a woman’s mind and intellect, and their body’s capacity in physical competition. Sorry, this is just not intellectually sustainable nor is it equitable.
Two I am sure very nice people that find themselves at the forefront of social and cultural evolution and I have respect for them both in their struggle for acceptance and wish them both well. Like it or not America is evolving in some untraditional ways that not all will be happy to see, but there it is all the same. Our country in time will find its reasonable and truly equitable balance at some point.
This is our system; this is our process.
There are lines of common sense that cannot be intellectualized into being rational, reasonable and equitable. To say nothing about the sacrificial disruption of an entire young female segment of society allegedly championed by the Feminist movement. Feminism and the Feminist movement is by evidence a selective, woke, politically correct fraud. Its service and purpose to the country is long over. And few can argue against that conclusion.
At what point in American politics did it become acceptable to sacrifice young American women in athletic competition in the name of an intellectualized sense of “equity”? There is no equity here. If you are on the woke, politically correct extreme Left, are you willing to sacrifice your young daughter’s future on the woke, politically correct alter of athletic competition? I didn’t think so.