Wednesday, February 12, 2014

No, it does not violate his 1st amendment rights

Kent State University in Ohio suspended indefinitely one of their varsity wrestlers for sending a negative tweet about Michael Sam coming out and the prospect of having gay pro athletes.

Think about it.    We've come from gay people being verbally and physically abused to homophobes being suspended for making anti-gay comments.
 

Before someone trots out the "free speech" argument, let me point out that this student is free to keep sending anti-gay tweets.   He just can't exhibit such unsportsmanlike behavior and continue as a member of the varsity team.

That is not taking away his rightsit is exercising the team's right to choose its players based in part on their off-field behavior as it represents the team and the school.


It's the same principle that got Alec Baldwin dropped from his new MSNBC talk show gig after one show.   And the same principle that lets Rush Limbaugh continue to spew forth his bigotry -- as long as the stations that sell him air time don't care -- but also led a whole bevy of advertisers to drop him after he called Sandra Fluke a slut.

Ralph

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