Teacher suspended from the job for expressing dislike to gays on facebook

Originally posted by Wyn Hawks
...if this teacher had posted on facebook that he was into cyber-sex with minors, everyone that is now behind this teacher screaming "freedom of speech" would be behind him trying to stick a knife in his back...

...does this school district have teachers sign an ethics agreement?... probably so since its fairly standard... if so, freedom of speech has nothing to do with this deal now since, by signing the agreement, he agreed to the restrictions...

Sex with minors is a criminal offence... up to now "disliking" someone is not and should never be!!

Originally posted by Sphota

Originally posted by Mister_Bit

Originally posted by beezzer
I wonder what would happen if a teacher went to a church that was against things like gays, abortion. . . .

This would be in the public also, wouldn't it? I mean, a gay student or a student that might want an abortion someday might see that teacher go into the church.

Hmmmm.

Yeah, and god forbid if the teacher wants to paint their livingroom green and one of the students is offended by green paint!!

Great Sig by the way, made me laugh!

**My point for using this graphic sexual imagery is that he did not need to make the comment the way he did. In fact, he could have stated it in a more logical way, supported by some belief he has or biblical verse or whatever other moralistic stance. He just chose to sum it up with vomiting. Still, the kids should not be on his facebook page in this case.

My point is, he could've said whatever the hell he pleasesm it's his PERSONAL page, if someone takes offence then that is THEIR problem not his.

To the point that pupils were on his page, well, that's their choice but I personally believe teacher and pupil "relations" should stay as such and within the school.

First I am gay. I really feel like the comment was the teachers own opinion rather immature but his opionion. I feel he should be in more trouble for befriending students on his facebook unless they are college students. I never feel is apporaite for a teacher to befriend students, or even bosses befreinding their employees this just crosses a professional boundary here.
Now if the teacher said this in a class room he should be in trouble but outside of school he should just have to unfriend the students and say all the stupid comments he wants on his facebook. After all we still have the freedom of speech don't we? I thought that most schools have policies stating that teachers can not socialize with students outside of school including facebook?

Originally posted by Mister_Bit

Sex with minors is a criminal offence... up to now "disliking" someone is not and should never be!!

That is not exactly true. 16 is still a minor but you can screw all the 16 year olds you want in many places. Those are laws though. There is no law protecting your job from your own public stupidity.

Originally posted by dreamseeker
After all we still have the freedom of speech don't we?

I have to ask what this has to do with freedom of speech.
Was the teacher criminally prosecuted?

Originally posted by Wyn Hawks
...if this teacher had posted on facebook that he was into cyber-sex with minors

Originally posted by Mister_Bit
Sex with minors is a criminal offence...

...cyber-sex is NOT physical sexual contact with a minor - duh - nor was that the point of my previous post... so, as roseanna roseanna danna said, "nevermind!"...

Originally posted by Observer99

Originally posted by Sphota
What glib excuses did I use anywhere to deny any of the things you mentioned above? I only took a shot at humans with animals. If, by some miracle, a dog or spider monkey was able to consent to a relationship with a human being, then by all means, be happy. But, without a language faculty and all the societal trappings that come with it, I don't see that happening soon.

Do you have any pets? Do they consent to being your pets? Can you tell when your pet is happy or sad, loves you or is scared of you? Of course you can. As alien as it seems to you or I, there ARE people that believe they love animals. Why is it our place to tell them they can't marry one? It's just another double standard which you put in place to wrongfully elevate your own deviancy above the deviancy of others. The correct stance is that individuals are allowed to be "deviant" as long as it doesn't hurt others, but that society shouldn't have to be altered to encompass and recognize all deviant behavior as equal. Because in the changing and removal of societal standards, it ultimately DOES hurt others.

There may be people who believe a young child returns their love in "that" way, and those people need mental help, because a pre-pubescent child cannot make those sorts of choices with rationale. There are people who believe that the object of their affection loves them even though they ignore them and avoid them; we call these people stalkers.

Animals do not have a language faculty, they cannot be "peers" in the same way a human (or humans) can. I really have to choose my words carefully, because what I don't mention seems to be license for you to assume I do not condone that thing. If someone's idea of a good time is putting on a leather saddle and furry donkey outfits and be ridden around by a troupe of bisexual midget minstrels in cowboy uniforms, well, that's their kink.

As far as animals, again, yes, I've always been a pet owner and I've often contemplated the relationship between pet and owner and whether it has been a "fair" relationship over the millenia of domestication. In a way, we take away their "nature" because we hold them into bondage, both literal and coerced (feeding times, etc.). Maybe all pets suffer from Stockholm syndrome...what do I know, I'm not an animal behaviorist.

It's too bad that the media has told you for 30 years that standards are old and stupid. In reality, standards are necessary for a functioning society.

Standards? What standards? You can just say words, but that doesn't mean your semantic loading of them must carry through to all other persons. I can say "morals" and mean "thieve's code" it doesn't make it so. Standard simply means regular, common, average, the bar to attain, the minimal goal, the "at-least". The standard way to wash a car is with a hose (there are other ways to wash it). The standards for passing the exam are X (Johnny did not reach the standards; Jimmy surpassed them).

So, standards set by whom and for whom and for what purpose? I think of all sorts of standards that tribes in Africa live by, Aboriginal Australians, the Chinese, the Amish, the Muslims, the Mexicans...which standards. They are not all identical. Oh, you mean pseudo-Christian, pseudo-Capitalist ideological standards of some idealistic Main Street Disney America favored by Jesus, repeated ad nauseum in sindication with the requisite 8.5 minutes of commercial breaks to buy the products that help you attain said moralistic standards, faster, stronger, twice-the-cleaning power, now half-price* (*In comparison with Original Standards)

Originally posted by SphotaIt was the right of the teacher to have the opinion he so expressed. It was his right to express it freely outside of a communal space to which he had a social contract binding his actions and speech. It is the right of society to say that within the bounds of schooling, a teacher is not to take advantage of his position of authority to not infringe on the rights of others, students or colleagues.

I don't see how he "took advantage of his authority" in any way. Did he post it on a school website? In a school pamphlet or newsletter? Did he force it as the topic of his class? No, he just posted something online like everyone else does. He had a non-PC opinion, and his only mistake was being dumb enough to state it out loud, being dumb enough to believe that free speech still exists. Then the liberal thought police arrested him. He may be wrong for being insensitive, but the punishment doesn't fit the "crime", as usual.

He took advantage of his authority in the relationship dynamic between him and his students. If he did not choose to have students as friends - as I've stated countless times - he would not have done something inappropriate. This is the crux of the issue. I personally believe as well that PC has gone to far, but that is neither here nor there. As an educator, especially when his pupils were minors, he should have had the gumption to not have students on his personal social media site. This is the bottom line.

Originally posted by SphotaIt is not up to someone else's religion to dictate my belief system at this point in time. I do not have entitlement or a "delusional belief of protected status". I don't know why you think I have this. I would like to know why, so please respond.

You have entitlement and protected status by the prevailing and enforced opinion of the media and the thought police, as clearly evidenced by the topic of this thread.

By your interpretation. That still does not tell me how "I" have protected status. Do you mean gays? What protected status. I've thought about this for a while as I have not been online to contribute or answer your post. The best I can come up with is the following: Niche groups are created by comparison.

It's a sort of societal Gestalt - whereby the parameters of us-ness and them-ness are created by a societal dialog. For someone who is not gay, but who listens to the media (who is only going to serve up what is demanded - though I don't want to stray), gays fit a certain profile (a Gestalt, if you will). Those who do not fit into this profile do not possess the qualities of "gayness" that are requisite to be gay from the point of view of a societal Gestalt. The current "Gay" gestalt in our society seems to be feminine males hell bent on marriage. So, the reaction is created, Anti-gay marriage advocates. The whole noxious brew boils down to a Us vs. Them, you're either with us or against us mentality.

But it was never that way to begin with: There are gays out there who are not even interested in pairing off - whether that be State sanctioned, Church sanctioned, or otherwise; there are gays out there who want to pair off, but do not really care about any sort of special recognition; there are gays out there who want to be recognized by the State to have access to the same rights of visitation, tax breaks and so forth that come with heterosexual marriage; and there are gays out there who want to change their religion so as to permit homosexual unions. There are also non-gays (any and all other lifestyles to be clear) that want and/or do not want any sort of change to their status - or perhaps they've never even thought of it.

What would have been the reaction if the teacher had commented "Guys can marry multiple women now? That makes me sick!" or "Brothers can marry their sisters now? That makes me sick!" Not only would he NOT have gotten in trouble for "offending the sensibilities of a protected group", on the contrary, he might have actually gotten in trouble for bringing up or talking about such a "deviant" topic. Anyone that can't see the protected status of gays is truly blind.

Yes and no. As the issue is not even relevant in that no one is talking about it (except that polygamist court case recently, though the State argued he had abused minor girls if I'm not mistaken), he would have been dismissed as "random". No one at this moment is bringing polygamous, polyandrous, male-female-shemale couplings, dog-human couplings, dog-human-cousin couplings or any other random sort of union. No one is really bringing it up.

The truth is, the norm seems to be for one person to want to be with another single person (whoever that person is) and from a standpoint of jealousy, I can easily see why. I won't discount multiple partners in a binding union without jealousy, but there must be some hierarchy for this to exist. In effect, history tells us how this works with harems, concubines, and so forth. I cannot speak to the idea of union, but in all honestly, more than two people - in fact, large groups that I've seen here in the US seem to be cumbersome from a relationship standpoint. They seem to end up more like a sort of Mormon Kibbutz than a romantic union, but I don't know enough about it either way.

As for "why it is up to religion to dictate societal standards" -- what other source would you suggest for societal standards? The principles of the christian religion were used to set many of the standards we live by. It took us a while to get it right. Now we want to throw it all out and believe we can live without those standards. Humans left to their own devices may ultimately retain no standards, and that's a recipe for destruction.

OK Hobbs, I guess Christianity is the only true way to really cement our social values. Millions of people all over the world have not been able to accomplish that on their own over time and at the present moment. Meanwhile, I don't see Christian values being so steadfast that they lock down all the moral issues we see bubbling up here and there. I also have yet to see a Christian uprising against war and violence, which is mentioned a lot more than homosexuality in the Bible.

As far as "took us a while to get it right"...more like work in progress. I don't see anything "right" at the moment, nor pre-Stonewall (if we're going to focus on homosexually-generated moral decay into the abyss of fire and brimstone a la Westboro Baptist Church). Thou shalt not steal and Thou shalt not kill seem to be the baby in the bathwater when it comes to the US's foreign mis-adventurism vis-a-vis the impeccable standards you discuss.

I suppose that some of the degradation of our societal morals may be directly caused by the NWO crowd, whose goal is to completely destroy the family and create a world similar to that described in 'Brave New World', where the state has absolute control of children (and everything.) But I don't think the Roman Empire was similarly brought down by global elitists. They were brought down due to a lot of the same things we are seeing today. The abandonment of moral standards, as well as unsustainable defense spending.

When that gets here, let me know. I, for one, am of the belief that the NWO (or whatever name a person could want to use) is already here and now. As there is no other "time" but the present, all memories of the past are simply that - memories - and all preoccupations with the future are merely best guesses based on observable details.

If you see the "family" being destroyed, I would like to know in what sense. In the sense of single mothers on welfare; the sense of the War on Drugs and infiltration of addiction through disease breaking up the family unit; in the sense of mindless technology that disassociates us from our friends and family and makes simple communication break down outside of cyberspace; or of Empire, destroying families on the one hand by sending the father or mother to war to be killed or mamed, and on the other, having those would-be disabled veterans destroy families in some far off place; or is it due to the Gays...those protected scape goats of the Whore of Babylon? Gays can only be morally corrupt, or is it their "protected" status of lives dealing with bigotry, isolation, confusion, and loneliness that leads to the corruptive influences of anonymous sex, STDs, addiction and suicide??? Hmmm. Let's ask "the Blacks"...the other protected class who seem to be having a jolly old time with their 50% decline in net worth, disproportionate representation in prisons and on welfare, and their 2-times unemployment rate.

Yes, it must be that the "protected" status that these groups enjoy allows them to wallow in their inherent hedonism and immorality...probably couldn't be that the mask of "PC" America: 2011 paints a prettier kumbaya picture than real life dictates.

It doesn't matter whether Jesus existed, what matters ultimately is what beliefs and standards help society to best function for the most good of its citizens. Very, very few people can have an objective view on this topic. Very few people that agree with me are doing so for the right reasons, or can really see the big picture. IF denying a piece of paper to 3% of the populace prevents the degradation of standards which ultimately lead to the destruction of a society, if we could see ahead 100 years to visually witness the outcome, are you so selfish that you wouldn't even consider it?

OK, got it, Jesus is a moot point, so the doctrine came from some other place...Peter, Paul and Mary, I guess (no pun intended) and yet we're supposed to live by it either way. Nothing to really rebut there. I'm not sure what topic - at this point - I'm supposed to have an objective view on. In the end, there is no such thing as objectivity, I'll admit to that as it is a hallmark of Peircean semiotics. Upon creation of the subject, there can only be a subjective view, as I cannot enter your consciousness no more than you can enter mine.

But that's not really the issue. You seem to have the truth all sorted out, the objective plan of the universe and great being who created it. In the end, the BS of this society is pointless, so why even care who gets this or that right, when it will be denied 10-fold to many others (I don't just mean the US). In the end, we only have best guesses. Maybe your best guess is how you've laid it out. I'm willing to accept that. My best guess at this point in time is that it really does not matter if gay people get married or not, so why be so against the ones that want to? I cannot see how it affects others. It's not going to break up Joe Q. and Jane Public's happy marriage. It's not going to make the Beav like beaver any less and it's not going to make little Timmy want to marry Lassey. The nostalgia of an America that never existed, eroded by the ghosts of social movements that have always existed, even when you weren't there to see them.

Originally posted by Sphota
In fact, the teacher was/is entitled to his opinion. It's only that as a teacher, with students as friends on face book, he is not entitled to influence their opinion on matters wholly unrelated to class

I'd be happy with that viewpoint, if it would be applied to the entire school. No more talk about alternate lifestyles. No more talk about sexual behavior other than a one-time properly created sex education class from a pure biology standpoint, which can be opted out of. No more pushing of liberal agendas in any public school building. They can teach and talk about traditional subjects of education and teach the children skills. That's it. Any teacher, any faculty member which ever voices any personal opinion, or brings in outside people for the purpose of voicing their personal opinions, will all be fired. Are you good with that?

edit on 20-8-2011 by Observer99 because: (no reason given)

I don't know where you went to high school, but I've never had a liberal agenda pushed at me. I don't recall reading Howard Zin's People's History of the US in civics class. I read the thick book with lots of pictures with a handful of indians getting blankets in Manhattan and no relevant sections regarding the Vietnam War or the Contras.

I don't really feel like now transitioning into a discussion of pedagogical theory with you, but I'm not sure what opinions in class you are referring to. As a teacher, there were times when I'd have to stop myself mid sentence, because I realized what I was saying might be contrary to my students' mainstream views of society, but these were not views upheld by the left (or the right), they were views contrary to the status quo that is taught in the text books. Let's end here, because I can see where this last bit of discussion can really end in a chaotic back-and-forth.

The teacher can have his opinions about issues outside of the classroom. He can use social media for teaching purposes provided he keep it separate from however he chooses to socialize with his peers. He can discuss his opinions in a respectful way with like-minded students at off-campus events, provided that he did not coerce them or otherwise make their presence there mandatory for grade purposes.

He cannot take his opinions unrelated to the curriculum into the classroom. He cannot coerce his students to hold a belief any more than schools should force religious people to not accept the Biblical story of Genesis (though in my opinion, the State is only obligated to teach the biology, chemistry and geology related to planet formation, not a traditional belief system held to be true by some in the society). He *should* not (though in theory he could) have students as friends on facebook, though he should know well enough to tone down the dialog he uses if that is the case.

Originally posted by Wyn Hawks

Originally posted by Wyn Hawks
...if this teacher had posted on facebook that he was into cyber-sex with minors

Originally posted by Mister_Bit
Sex with minors is a criminal offence...

...cyber-sex is NOT physical sexual contact with a minor - duh - nor was that the point of my previous post... so, as roseanna roseanna danna said, "nevermind!"...

Semantics... Sex/Cyber Sex... any sexual behavior etc etc involving minors... you're just trying to be clever and yes, that would be wrong because anything like that involving minors is criminal.

Originally posted by Mister_Bit
you're just trying to be clever

...i dont have to TRY, dear...

...as i explained before (with humor and tolerance), you totally missed the point in my initial post... you still dont get it or want to pretend that you dont, so now i'll be blunt... if you want to discuss my initial post, thats fine - but - if you wanna discuss anything else - i'm not interested...

Originally posted by Wyn Hawks

Originally posted by Mister_Bit
you're just trying to be clever

...i dont have to TRY, dear...

...as i explained before (with humor and tolerance), you totally missed the point in my initial post... you still dont get it or want to pretend that you dont, so now i'll be blunt... if you want to discuss my initial post, thats fine - but - if you wanna discuss anything else - i'm not interested...

I believe I AM discussing your initial post... that would be the one...... "..if this teacher had posted on facebook that he was into cyber-sex with minors, everyone that is now behind this teacher screaming "freedom of speech" would be behind him trying to stick a knife in his back...
" which is exactly what I addressed.

You seem to be confused but I'm not going to derail this thread arguing this point with you.

Originally posted by Mister_Bit
No, I'm all about the right of the individual to have the right afforded to an individual. What that individual does outside of work hours in their own private time is their own business, they are NOT walking adverts or accountable and answerable to their workplace.

Says who?
Tell that to every person that was fired for failing a drug test.
Tell that to every person that has been fired for being arrested or even denied a job for having an arrest record.
What you do outside of work CAN and often DOES reflect back on the place that employs you.

If one of my employees was all over facebook making racist jokes, you better believe they would be gone right quickly because it is really bad for business to have a known racist working for you. Get it? See, I have that right. You can talk about "rights" all you want but you have no "right" to be employed.

They are paid to do a job, which they do that is all, it's not a life sentence that they are accountable for.

What they express on their own personal page to friends and family is their own business... understand?

No, I do not understand. What you are saying is pure fantasy. I have a hard time dealing in fantasy.
There was a cop here fired recently for sexual misconduct performed while off duty. Why was he fired? Because it made the cops all look bad. Gonna come defend him?

attacking a protected group is interfering with their rights of freedom of ___

Originally posted by Domo1
Man where are we going to draw the line on this sort of thing? I don't think employers should have any say over what is posted on facebook. In certain circumstances I understand when someone loses a job over a Facebook post but this is not one of them.

So where do you draw the line? Obviously you think there should be one from what you just wrote so where is it and who gets to decide? You?

Just because a teacher does not support homosexuals does not mean that she is going to bring that to work with her.

What makes you think she stops disliking gays when she is on the clock? The problem with that sort of thing is that it is a part of who you are.

It's too bad she isn't more tolerant but she shouldn't have t oworry about her job because of something said outside of work.

So what if she posted how she liked to smoke crack?
What if she posted how she wanted to have sex with one of her students?

Originally posted by snarfbot
youre either entitled to your opinion, and your right to express that opinion in a free society or youre not.

apparently the qualifier is whether or not the opinion agrees with the current sociopolitical climate.

so basically the more things change, the more they stay the same.

You have the right to express your opinion.
I have the right to fire you.

People are confusing what a right is. The government did not persecute this teacher and that is all that "right" is about. Nothing in the constitution guarantees you are free from being fired.

Originally posted by Mister_Bit
Sex with minors is a criminal offence... up to now "disliking" someone is not and should never be!!

Only in some states so it is perfectly comparable. There are plenty of places you can have sex with a 16 year old minor legally. So expressing a like for that would not necessarily be any different.

We in the west have become slaves. "Don't think that", "Don't say that", all in the name of political correctness. Know what will kill us all? No, not some rogue comet. No, not North Korea, Iran or China. No, not some killer tsunami or earth quake. Not even global warming will.

What'll kill us, is political correctness. The loss of free speech. The loss to be able to have our OWN opinions and meanings. What'll kill us is the fact that we can no longer be ourselves, we have to CONFORM to everyone else. We have to walk on eggshells, tip toe around each other just to make sure we don't upset each other. We've become kids, and our government our parents. "Daddy Government, this man said a meanie to me! Make a law so all the bad men will go away with their independent thoughts and opinions!"

Screw that. I'll say what I will, even if it means losing my job. The day a muzzle is put on my mouth is the day I die.

Disclaimer:
There's a big difference between being civilized and acknowledging another persons feelings and acting like a mature adult and not make them feel bad through various epithets. Another thing entirely to quell a person because he or she disagrees with you.

"I don't like gays" shouldn't be a punishable phrase.
"I don't like gays and want them dead" is something ENTIRELY different.

Get the picture?

Originally posted by Sphota
There may be people who believe a young child returns their love in "that" way

Yes, but I didn't bring up that toxic subject. I did not make that case nor did I expect you to make that case, so I saw no point in mentioning it.

Originally posted by Sphota
Standards? What standards? You can just say words, but that doesn't mean your semantic loading of them must carry through to all other persons. I can say "morals" and mean "thieve's code" it doesn't make it so. Standard simply means regular, common, average, the bar to attain, the minimal goal, the "at-least".

The standards of 1 man + 1 woman being the basis for a family, because that is what has worked historically and that is what works biologically. If you've read "Brave New World" you will understand the kind of future I see us heading toward. The gay marriage issue is just one step toward that dystopia.

This brings up another point I disagree with -- idealism vs. realism. It's fine and well to work to try to advance the human condition, but unless the genome has been altered, at the end of the day we are still human. It is absolutely probable that you could alter the human genome so that we could all be perfect homosexuals or perfect communists. But in reality, with our traditional genome, those things are simply not the case. I'll be nice and just say that homosexuals face a lot more "challenges" to having a healthy relationship. The statistics are on my side on that.

And more generally, the danger to society isn't necessarily from homosexuals in loose relationships trying to have kids. No matter how bad some of those families might turn out, it's a small percentage of the populace. The real danger is in the removal of the standards. Devaluing the traditional family and the male + female relationship. And yes, this is far from the only way this is happening. Women's lib and the nanny state also seriously devalued the traditional family. I won't bother expanding on this further since I suspect you either aren't truly considering what I'm saying as having any merit, or that you simply don't have the moral framework to grasp the facets of the human condition I am exploring. Not that you fail intellectually, but that there is more to understanding humanity than cold theoretical logic.

Originally posted by Sphota
By your interpretation. That still does not tell me how "I" have protected status.

You have groups ready to march at a moment's notice, you and those groups have the open support of the media and the public sympathy because of the constant diet of pro-gay ideas which the media has fed them over the past 30 years or so. Anti-gay comments are simply not tolerated in any way. You are a protected group, you are protected from any negative free speech against your group. Just like blacks and other minorities.

Somewhere in between redneck lynching and zero tolerance destruction of the individual for free speech, lies a middle ground of genuine honest discourse. Society skipped right over it. Honest discourse is not allowed, except where there is anonymity, or where the speaker has nothing to lose.

what other source would you suggest for societal standards?

Originally posted by Sphota
OK Hobbs, I guess Christianity is the only true way to really cement our social values.

Sarcasm is irrelevant. You didn't answer the question -- what is the preferred source for the societal standards, if not Christianity? I take your lack of answer to mean that you believe society goes along just fine without standards. I couldn't disagree more.

Originally posted by Sphota
If you see the "family" being destroyed, I would like to know in what sense.

Are you blind to modern day western culture? Nations of fatherless children, thanks to the divorce epidemic? Squarely behind that epidemic lie the ideals of women's lib, which were paid for and advocated by the same elite who push the NWO. Look for Aaron Russo's interview on youtube about 9/11. It's a very interesting side item in that interview.

I, like you, always believed in the idealism spoon-fed to me, that of course women should be equal in every way! Now that I know who supported it, and now that I am old enough to look at society crumbling around me, I can see that maybe that idealism wasn't quite right after all. Again, between classically oppressed women, and the culture we have now, we must have passed some middle ground where men could be men, women could be women, while somehow embracing and celebrating each others differences.

I think that idea is the toughest of all -- that just maybe, women shouldn't act like men. Again -- are maximum rights for all individuals so sacred, that we should sacrifice our society on the altar of those individual rights? I don't really believe that there are enough adults and enlightened people in the world to fairly and honestly address the question. I think we'll just keep going down in flames. But at least it makes me feel better to point out just how wrong everyone is.

Too tired to continue for now. Later...

Originally posted by Kitilani

Originally posted by Mister_Bit
No, I'm all about the right of the individual to have the right afforded to an individual. What that individual does outside of work hours in their own private time is their own business, they are NOT walking adverts or accountable and answerable to their workplace.

Says who?
Tell that to every person that was fired for failing a drug test.
Tell that to every person that has been fired for being arrested or even denied a job for having an arrest record.
What you do outside of work CAN and often DOES reflect back on the place that employs you.

If one of my employees was all over facebook making racist jokes, you better believe they would be gone right quickly because it is really bad for business to have a known racist working for you. Get it? See, I have that right. You can talk about "rights" all you want but you have no "right" to be employed.

They are paid to do a job, which they do that is all, it's not a life sentence that they are accountable for.

What they express on their own personal page to friends and family is their own business... understand?

No, I do not understand. What you are saying is pure fantasy. I have a hard time dealing in fantasy.
There was a cop here fired recently for sexual misconduct performed while off duty. Why was he fired? Because it made the cops all look bad. Gonna come defend him?

I'm not saying things like that don't happen, what I'm saying is they shouldn't happen.

These people are human beings, not resources for people like you to use and abuse to promote your business.

What they do outside of the time you pay them for is frankly non our your *%&*£% business!!!

If you want to fire someone because they have a criminal record, that is entirely different, they are criminals and it's your right to choose but policing what they say and think is frankly disgusting.