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George Will, Is There Something In Your Eye? The Truth About Oakland's Ban on Hate Speech in the Workplace

By John A. Russo

Last week, the pundit George Will used his syndicated soapbox to slander the City of Oakland and our insistence on civility and tolerance in our workplace. Using a “reductio ad absurdum” style of argument that would be transparent to any high school debate team member, Mr. Will whined that the use of the words “marriage” and “natural family” is the equivalent of hate speech in the eyes of the City of Oakland. Mr. Will’s line of reasoning is both bizarre and false.

Mr. Will may believe that his notoriety as an opinion writer permits him to ignore the facts and baldly misrepresent the context of the Oakland case. However, for the sake of anyone who may have been misled by Mr. Will’s vision of Oakland as some type of politically correct dystopia, here is the truth.

The City of Oakland successfully defended our anti-discrimination policy in a lawsuit brought by disgruntled employees who claimed that their First Amendment Rights were violated when a supervisor removed a homophobic flyer from the workplace. Mr. Will complains that Oakland’s victories in the courts are to be expected in the bleeding-heart-liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. This is deceptive. What Mr. Will doesn’t tell his readers is this: four judges have now ruled in favor of the city’s action to promote a tolerant, harassment-free workplace. Three of those judges are conservatives – two were appointed by George W. Bush.

The Good News Employees Association (GNEA) was formed in response to an openly gay Councilmember’s email inviting both gay and straight employees to support a National Coming Out day. Two Oakland city employees formed the GNEA organization as “a forum for people of Faith to express their views…with respect for the Natural Family, Marriage and Family Values” and generated a flyer titled: “Preserve Our Workplace Integrity”.

The flyer’s language judges homosexuality as something that hurts the "integrity" of the workplace. This is not a conclusion the city drew merely to protect a hypersensitive lesbian, as Mr. Will so sleazily suggests. The employees who drafted the flyer actually declared under oath that they wanted to inject their intolerant worldview into the workplace. This point resonated, in particular, with Circuit Court Judge Richard Clifton, a Bush appointee. He said, “It’s hard to avoid the inference, ‘We lack ethics, we lack integrity because these people are here.’”

Supervisors reviewed the flier and explained to the plaintiffs why the flyer had been removed. Will never tells his readers that the plaintiffs were invited to submit a new flyer without the discriminatory language. Instead, the GNEA plaintiffs filed a lawsuit complaining their free speech rights had been obstructed and that the city’s anti-discrimination policy “promotes homosexuality” and “openly denounces Christian values.” Ultimately, the GNEA wanted to use city time and resources to validate their personal neurosis—which is that heterosexual marriage can only be validated by invalidating same-sex marriage.

Furthermore, the seemingly harmless flyer was not an isolated incident but part of a deliberate pattern of harassment. The GNEA flyer was specifically posted outside of a lesbian co-worker’s cubicle, placed on her desk and in the restroom. The plaintiffs went out of their way to harass their lesbian co-worker as well as to proselytize about their belief on city time and on the taxpayer’s dime.

Ultimately, the four judges (again, three of whom are conservative) recognized that the city has a responsibility to protect all of its employees from discrimination and harassment. The court emphasized that the city has “significant interests in restricting discriminatory speech about homosexuals…(and has) a duty under state law to prevent workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.” In addition, the court also found that the city had “a more substantial interest in maintaining the efficient operation of their office than the appellants had in their speech.”

Plaintiffs continue to work at the city and are free to express their views on marriage and gay rights over lunch or on a break. Plaintiffs were also not prohibited from organizing GNEA or from publicly announcing GNEA meetings.

But you gotta love George Will and his ilk. With neither a hint of shame nor a shadow of a blush, the same Right Wing blowhards who denounce the use of “specious” lawsuits to dictate morality, and who shed crocodile tears over the ways trial lawyers have “interfered” with the prerogatives of workplace management, will gladly race to the courthouse when it suits their dogmatic purposes. They would be wise to take heed from one of my favorite books: "First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." (Matthew 7:5)

John A. Russo is Oakland’s first elected City Attorney. He was re-elected to a second, four-year term in March 2004. He is not related to Frank Russo, as far as we have been able to determine.

Posted on June 28, 2007

Comments

I thought that City officials should avoid separation of Church and State issues. The Oakland City Attorney's use of a Bible to bash Christian employees is suspect at best.

Posted by: Concerned Citizen at June 28, 2007 07:37 PM

Typical response of a fag under the examining eye of the Light of Truth.
When a rock is chunked into a gang of dogs, the one that yelps is usually the one that gets hit. Right Mr. Russo?

Posted by: Charlene at June 28, 2007 08:18 PM

I do not support any reference to someone as a "fag." What I am concerned about is the free exchange of ideas on open forums.

If the City of Oakland wanted to avoid problems, it should have avoided any use of bulletin boards, e-mail for anyone, and announcement systems for non-city business. It should not have made itself the sole censor of what is right and wrong in terms of innocuous speech.

Prior restraint is no way to open and maintain the marketplace of ideas.

Posted by: Concerned Citizen at June 28, 2007 08:56 PM

These people are so blind to the truth. "When it gets to the point where people would rather come out of the closet than clean it it's the sign that the judgment of God is going to fall." Satan along with his minion, John A. Russo, quote scripture out of context to deceive and condone their evil lifestyles. True followers of Jesus Christ will never affirm that which comes from Satan. It is just as the Lord said would happen...they will call what is wrong, right. There will never ever be same sex marriage! Marriage was ordained by God and he will never ordain that which is unholy. Man can do all the evil he wishes and call it whatever he wants but it will never be blessed by our Holy God.

Posted by: Bob at June 28, 2007 09:00 PM

The judgement of God WILL fall, Bob. Well said. These sickos want to claim this state of "orientation" is 'natural'. If it's so natural, why can't they NATURALLY produce children? Because it AIN'T NATURAL, that's why. They can't procreate because it's not natural for male/male and female/female. The queers were offended by the notion of Christianity and they want to come off like they are the ones being tolerant... in a pigs eye. I'm sick and tied of being slapped around in the public forums and being made to feel like I should apologize for being a Christian. Not anymore. I'm sick of seeing the workplace and people in it being defined by their sexuality. Wrong is wrong, and people should not be discriminated against because of their age, gender, religion or national origin. Because a person is queer or straight, should not even enter into anything. PERIOD....!!!

Posted by: Charlene at June 28, 2007 09:12 PM

I read the court document. What this was is: a limited open forum was allowed in the city emails to discuss only one side of a debated issue. The city believes this is okay to quelch speech that doesn't agree with their own. The problem is not the content of the speech. The problem is that the city allows personal emails on personal topics so long as they agree with city perceived policy but not if it does not. So the city is free to squelch anyone and anything it disagrees with but allow public employees on public dime to say things hurtful to Christians because, well, they feel Christians are hurtful to others. The city could have avoided all this by taking back the limited public forum or by leaving it open. To have a limited forum and ban something because it is disagreeable to certain city staff is "viewpoint discrimination" when done in the context of limiting access to a limited public forum. Schools can't do this. So they often choose to have no forum. This city wants it both ways and lays claim to all manner of things to defend it But it can't defend and won't address the essential element: it is a limited open forum and they don't treat it as one when the viewpoints are disagreeable to them. Limited open forums are anything goes, not "anything within bounds we feel comfortable with". During a limited forum, the Ku Klux Klan can speak. If you don't like it, don't have it. But don't justify bracketing it down and then claim the high side. It's just politics and favoritism: if you have the city's views, you can promote the cities views with your personal emails. If you don't, then the personal emails aren't allowed from you. We're not talking about business emails, we're talking about censuring private topic ones for some while allowing for others. All the other stuff talked about? It misses this point.

Posted by: Bill N at June 29, 2007 01:04 AM

Bill N,

Couldn't have said it better myself. People need to stop getting carried away with emotions on such topics and have discussions based on logic.

Posted by: Dan at July 7, 2007 04:47 AM

Mr Russo,

If we are to have a free society, we must extend those freedoms to everyone equally. If I, being a government employer, had a bulletin board for my employees and took down a homosexuals comment against The Bible and Christians principles, would you fight for the rights of that homosexual and his/her freedom of speech? The problem here is that the government (whether it be local, state, OR federal) has no right squelching ANYONE'S freedom of speech. If it does, then we have no true freedom of speech at all. It doesn't matter if that speech offends people or not. The first amendment does not guarantee us "the freedom of 'politically correct' speech". Freedom of speech is just that: FREEDOM! If I'm a Fundamental Baptist, I am free to preach the ENTIRE Bible. Yes, even Rev. 21:8 "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death." If the fearful get offended, TOUGH. If the unbelieving get bothered, TOO BAD. If a murderer gets offended, TOUGH. If a harlot or sorcerer, or idolater doesn't like it, SO WHAT. If I step on the toes of a liar and he gets offended, TOUGH. It's MY freedom of speech! Likewise, if a homosexual gets offended because I preach The Bible truth that it is an abomination for a man to "know" (have sex with) another man, TOUGH. We are sacrificing our core foundational principles in America. We are sacrificing them on the "alter" of POLITICAL CORRECTNESS.

I too get hurt and offended. When I was in public high school, it offended me that my 9th grade History teacher called me "Bible Thumper". It may offend me when people call me "bigot" or "Jesus Freak" or "fanatic". But you know what? They have their freedom of speech too. I can GROW UP and hold my head up high and ignore it if I don't like it.

Maybe a black person gets offended when a NeoNazi calls him a "Nigger". Well, it also offends a white person to be called a "cracker" or a "honkey". It offends a homosexual to be called a "fag" or "queer". Well it also offends Christians to be called "hateful" or "homophobic" or "bigot". And a Mexican gets offended being called a "Spic" and a Chinese person gets offended being called a "Chink". Does this make these hate crimes? Should someone in the government sensor it all or try to force us all to stop? Of Course not! EVERYONE has their freedom of speech. Where will we draw the line? Will I be able to have someone put in jail 20 years from now because they call me a jerk? Or is this whole thing just one sided?

It's time politicians stop trying to force everyone else to be politically correct. I'm not a politician! It's time they stop trying to shove us all into their little box of what they consider tolerant and acceptable while being intolerant of MY rights. Otherwise, it will be too late. We will be on an Even faster downhill slide into Communism and dictatorship.

Posted by: Dan at July 7, 2007 06:18 AM

God is oppossed to homosexuality in any form or any place. His judgement will fall on all of the united states. this will bring her to her knees and peple will have to addmit that a world view and the money that run it are not of god

Posted by: David Eittreim at July 7, 2007 09:09 AM

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