A tough lawsuit for conservatives

No, it’s an easy call. A “frivolous” lawsuit is one targeting somebody on their side (i.e. corporate America in some guise). This lawsuit, against liberal Hollywood’s conspiracy to recruit for teh Gay, is highly meritorious.

“False imprisonment” for compulsory attendance at a classroom event? Might as well just call off the whole public schooling thing altogether, then.

Assuming the story is true (students were not allowed to leave)… sorry, I’m with the nut-jobs on this one.

If religious folk can opt-out of sex ed, I can’t fathom how they can’t exclude themselves from a mandatory viewing of a film whose central theme is struggles with the social ostracism of innate homosexuality.

Now, I’m not saying this couldn’t be an innocent mistake and I’m not saying I support 400k in damages, but if this kid is willing to lose nights and weekends to a shrink’s couch, I’m inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt. (Granted, much of the trauma was caused by parental upbringing flying smack into mainstream acceptance of people’s differences, but that doesn’t make the trauma fake.)

Somehow I don’t think we’re obtaining the full story. It seems odd that any school would force any 12-year-old to watch a controversial movie without permission from the parents. Of course, if you’re going to “get” a source of liberal activism such as the Chicago Board of Education, I suppose you would feign ignorance and whine later.

They have a legit beef, in that the film carries an R rating. But ’emotional distress’? File it under Culture of Victimhood.

This should go to the school board, not the courts.

You can’t force kids to watch Brokeback Mountain. If you want to show the movie to public school kids, you should have the parents’ sign a permission slip or something.

I’d give the family 5K, fire the sub and suspend the principal.

What’s a conservative movement to do?

I’m on their side, here, though I think the $400K is frivolous. The thought experiment is how I’d react if my [hypothetical] 12-year-old were forced to watch, say, The Passion of the Christ: I’d be equally upset.

I’m as pro-gay as anyone, but if my kid were in that class, I’d be making a huge stink over this. What sort of birdbrained idiot shows a classroom of 12-year-olds an R-rated movie?

You know how people get all hysterical about how the public schools want to indoctrinate kids into gay culture? They’ll have a field day with this. I hope somehow it isn’t true.

‘“False imprisonment” for compulsory attendance at a classroom event? Might as well just call off the whole public schooling thing altogether, then.”

god knows, they’re trying!

Agreeing with the others that there must be more backstory to this story (I hope! Showing R movies to a bunch of 12-yr olds? C’mon now, how stupid do you have to be? OTOH, teachers are apparently now conducting fake crazed-gunman-in-the-classroom drills, so whaddo I know?)

My larger complaint would be taking up 2 hrs of classtime to show ANY movie. Even historically-based movies are still MOVIES. They are entertainment, not education. Surely there’s a better use of two hours of classroom time than watching movies.

I agree that showing an R-rated movie to 12 yr olds should be a firing offense. And the financial penalty should be whatever it takes to get their attention.

It will be fun to see the rightwingers’ arguments for the $400k.

I didn’t see Brokeback mountain.
However my father and sister did.
They said the sexual scenes were pretty intense.
Both of them are atheists. Neither is a prude.

Ergo, I feel force feeding this movie to 12 year olds was way out of bounds.

Since when do substitute teachers assume it is their right to introduce radical content into a classroom?

FACT: A substitute teacher has no right taking the trust built up between a class and its teacher and wrenching it sideways on a whim. You are there for a day or two. Instructions have been left on the desk. Follow them. You got a social ax to grind? Get a blog, not a classroom.

ya know, i’m a gay guy myself and i think it’s totally absurd that any teacher (full-time or substitute) would think it’s appropriate to show that movie to his or her students. i mean, why ‘brokeback mountain?’ there’re other, less controversial, movies to integrate gay culture into schools if that was the aim.

but of course, never to be outdone, the conservative douchebags are completely out of their minds to think this case is worth nearly half a million dollars. no one deserves to be paid for his or her blatant prejudice. and no one’s gonna convince me that these parents are fighting against anything other than the “homosexual agenda” i’ve heard so much about.

i figure there’s not much to be done — the whole world’s goin to hell, and idiots are takin over at every pass. whatever happened to common sense and decency? maybe we never had either to begin with.

“This might be a tough call for the right. On the one hand, they hate frivolous lawsuits. On the other hand, they hate gay people.”

Nice try CB, but based on most of the comments above, it seems like an easy call for everyone, right or left… and I’m not sure the folks who posted above and feel its worthy of a lawsuit are against showing class of 12-year olds Brokeback because they all “hate gay people”.

The movie shouldn’t have been shown in a class full of 12 year olds w/o parental consent. Heck, I wouldn’t want a high school senior class to see this movie in class unless the teacher had a damn good educational reason for showing it. Plus, if the allegations that the teacher said “What happens in Ms. Buford’s class stays in Ms. Buford’s class” are true, she was clearly trying to hide the fact she was showing the movie. If this is all true, it’s worthy of a lawsuit, perhaps not the $400k in damages.

Sigh. I’m with the Righties on this as well. There is NO good reason to show that movie to 12 year olds, or even highschoolers.

If that was offered in some film class for seniors on a non-compulsory basis, I could say, fine, collect permission slips and fire up the projector, but this is ridiculous.

As to the suit? Somebody should swing for this, and there should be some penalty sufficient to get people’s attention. I don’t know what $$$ to assign that.

#26 The Answer is Orange hit’s on an important piece of the puzzle with his ‘2 Teeny questions’

How long is the movie? How long was the class?

According to imdb, the film is 134 minutes. If someone is really dumb enough to think that a 2:14 class is the way to teach 12 year olds, then they might just be dumb enough to play this movie for them. My class lengths were 40~45 minutes, grades 1 through 12. I can’t imagine a substitute teacher extending a class by 2 periods – it would throw the entire school’s schedule out the window. What seems likely is that an excerpt may have been played that somehow related to the lesson plan.

There’s no doubt the Richardsons want the world to believe that the teacher locked these kids in the classroom, propped open their eyelids and forced them to watch this movie.
Unless K/12 classroom periods are 3 times longer than I’ve ever heard of, it just doesn’t add up.

JoeW,

Note, first of all, that this is an *elemenary* school– it may be the case that students spend the whole day in one classroom, rather than moving from room to room in periods like high school students. Second, even if there were class periods involved, it’s not exactly unusual for teachers to start a movie during one class period and continue showing it for the next two or three days until it’s finished; I had that experience many times during my public school education. Putting aside the question of whether watching a full Hollywood film a reasonable use of classroom time, I see no reason to think that the student’s story that the teacher simply closed the door and started showing the film, with the intention of finishing it either that day or a later day, doesn’t “add up.”

The whole thing is bullshit…making something out of nothing, any kid knows how to get out of their chair when they want, $400,000, how did they come up with that amount…lawyers would do it for $250,000 but not a dime less. Give me a break, but what fucking “serious” damage could have been done. I would say this student had deep psychological problems previous to this event obvious by the fact that her “parents” are suing for $400,000. The kid will definitely be damaged now by all the publicity. Kids just want to fit in, to belong, and her controllers didn’t have enough respect to seek private help for her “damage” but rather plaster her all over the national media. Give me a break…this is not an issue much less a national issue. First question to ask is did she see the “Jesus snuff film” shown in Churches all over the country?(The Passion of the Christ). How petty and self-righteous, greedy and trite.

Obviously, I meant to say “elementary” school.

Last I checked, 12 year olds didn’t attend elementary schools. That age would typically be 7th grade.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a pretty screwed up individual…
But mostly, the rest of the people I went to school with could be deemed “pillars of the community”.
And here in Denmark, in school, we were shown some serious shit in class.
Not to pervert us, nor to turn us into abstinent prudes…
but merely to educate and inform us of what the world was like.
And as for “Brokeback Mountain” being corrupting and evol(sic… cut me some poetic slack, would ya?) ????
SERIOUSLY???
How about watching “Christiane F”?
The sheer puritanical fervor of the U.S., left or right, never ceases to confound and amaze me.

“People have fought and died just as much for the rights of prudes to be protected from traumatizing material, as for the right for gays to live and be left alone.

Way to go, morons..”

My sarcasm/bronzy meter is broken,,,
But in cazz u b 4 relz…

So, acknowledging gay people is traumatizing?!?

And as for prudes, they exist in every walk of life….
and some of them are gay.

And finally, you don’t have the right not to be offended,
and gay people shouldn’t have to be “left alone”.
They should simply be accepted for what they are—
people like the rest our motley crew of humanity.
In other words, justy another group of morons in this teeming mass of idiocy.
Yeah, that’s right… I said it!
I HATE EVERYONE

Meow.