Anti-abortion student group sues California professor over free speech

[VooDooB]

Anti-abortion student group sues California professor over free speech

(CNN)

A lawsuit filed by a student anti-abortion group against a California university professor claims he and some of his students infringed on their free speech rights when erasing chalk messages on campus.

According to the lawsuit, Fresno State Students for Life planned to write messages in chalk outside the university's library. After getting approval from the university, they set a date: May 2.

That morning, the group wrote their messages; examples ranged from "You CAN be pregnant & successful" and "Unborn lives matter" to "Women need love, NOT abortion."

Shortly before finishing, the lawsuit claims, William Thatcher, an assistant professor of public health, approached the group and said they had to keep their messages to the university's free speech area.

According to Bernadette Tasy, one of the organizers with the group and a plaintiff in the lawsuit, Thatcher then said he would be back to remove the messages. Tasy says he returned with a group of students and they attempted to remove the group's messages.

Video provided to CNN by the group's lawyers shows Thatcher starting to erase the messages with his foot.

"You had permission to put it down; I have permission to get rid of it," he says in the video.

Tasy claims the students also took some of their chalk and wrote "pro-abortion messages" on the same sidewalk. The messages included "My body, my choice" and "Your body, your choice. I (heart) you."

The lawsuit alleges that Thatcher got students from his 8 a.m. class to help remove the anti-abortion messages.

CNN has been unable to obtain comment from Thatcher despite repeated requests.

In a statement to CNN, Joseph Castro, president of California State University, Fresno, said the school's policy on free speech is clear.

"Free speech on campus is not limited to a 'free speech zone' or any other narrowly defined area," he said. "Those disagreeing with the students' message have a right to their own speech, but they do not have the right to erase or stifle someone else's speech under the guise of their own right to free speech."

After the incident, the students contacted lawyers at Alliance Defending Freedom, a non-profit Christian legal group, which took up the case.

"The crux of this case is a very simple message. Public university professors should be encouraging free speech," said lead attorney, Travis Barham, one of the lawyers from the group, "not erasing it from existence. You will be held accountable."

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/12/health/fresno-chalk-free-speech-trnd/

[atlmom2]

I don't think anyone should be able to write in chalk on campus like that on either side. I think kids these days on both sides are stretching everything out of proportion. Just go to freaking school every day. Why is every day a damn protest now. By the way, I am pretty conservative and I am super pro choice.

[MissAndree]

If the government didn't jail them, I don't see how this is a free speech issue. 

Also, this Allaince Defending Freedom group is a homophobic hate group, so there is that. 

“The only surprise is the rapidity with which this degradation of our human dignity has occurred. It has occurred, with raging effect, and within twelve months, on the heels of government mandated recognition of same-sex ‘marriage’ – an oxymoronic institution if ever there was one. And, for its radical adherents, this has led to a deification of deviant sexual practices. It has further resulted in the inevitable and aggressive persecution of devout Christians who refuse to bow to the false god of sexual license.”

—ADF-affiliated attorney Charles LiMandri, “The Tyranny of Made-Up Sexual Identities, 2015

“The endgame of the homosexual legal agenda is unfettered sexual liberty and the silencing of all dissent.”

—ADF Senior Counsel Erik Stanley at the Gospel, Homosexuality, and the Future of Marriage conference, 2014

“Alliance Defending Freedom seeks to recover the robust Christendomic theology of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries. This is catholic, universal orthodoxy and it is desperately crucial for cultural renewal. Christians must strive to build glorious cultural cathedrals, rather than shanty tin sheds.”

—Blackstone Legal Fellowship website, 2014

"When given the same choice the Supreme Court of the United States had in Lawrence vs. Texas, the Indian Court did the right thing. India chose to protect society at large rather than give in to a vocal minority of homosexual advocates. … America needs to take note that a country of 1.2 billion people has rejected the road towards same-sex marriage, and understood that these kinds of bad decisions in the long run will harm society."

—Benjamin Bull, executive director of ADF Global, on the recriminalization of homosexuality in India, 2013

“[C]ontrol of the educational system is central to those who want to advance the homosexual agenda. By its very nature, homosexual acts are incapable of bearing fruit – indeed, strictly speaking, they are not sexual, as they are incapable of being generative or procreative. Thus there is the need to desensitize and corrupt young minds, both to undermine resistance to the agenda and for recruitment among those that are at an emotionally vulnerable stage of development.”

— Then-senior ADF Legal Counsel (Global) Piero Tozzi, speaking at the World Congress of Families gathering in Madrid, Spain, 2012

“And in the course of the now hundreds of cases the Alliance Defense Fund has now fought involving this homosexual agenda, one thing is certain: there is no room for compromise with those who would call evil ‘good.’”

—Alan Sears, speaking at the World Congress of Families gathering in Madrid, Spain, 2012

“The government should promote and encourage strong families. When school officials have to choose between protecting children in those families or furthering the homosexual agenda, the choice is obvious: protecting our children comes first.”

—Austin Nimocks, then-ADF senior counsel opposing a “Welcoming Schools” curriculum, 2008

“In the end, those who profess to be ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian,’ or who have otherwise slipped in and out of homosexual behavior, including ‘cruising’ for anonymous partners, are people who succumb to a dangerous temptation.”

—Austin Nimocks, then-ADF senior counsel, writing at TownHall.com, 2007

“As the homosexual agenda continues to sexualize our culture, other once-forbidden behaviors are exalted as just more alternative lifestyles. The result is that the well-being of millions of children is at risk, along with the right of parents to protect their children from sexual exploitation.”

—Alan Sears and Craig Osten, The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today, 2003

“We mention the new promotion of pedophilia in the context of talking about the influence of homosexual behavior on college campuses, because, despite all objections to the contrary, the two are often intrinsically linked.”

—Alan Sears and Craig Osten, The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today, 2003

“The issue under rational-basis review is not whether Texas should be concerned about opposite-sex sodomy, but whether it is reasonable to believe that same-sex sodomy is a distinct public health problem. It clearly is.”

—ADF attorney Glen Lavy, counsel of record, amicus brief, Lawrence v. Texas, 2003

[MissAndree]

“Alliance Defending Freedom seeks to recover the robust Christendomic theology of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries. This is catholic, universal orthodoxy and it is desperately crucial for cultural renewal. Christians must strive to build glorious cultural cathedrals, rather than shanty tin sheds.”

[AdrianneHill]

Yeah. That won't go far