Student Sues L.A. City College District Over Gay-Marriage Speech

Politically correct speech trumps the first amendment again. School campuses are particularly susceptible to ignoring the first amendment since many schools have a form of speech code to "protect" students.

The LA Times reports another instance of a college teacher out of control and a speech code that seems to trump the First Amendment. Jonathan Lopez attended a Los Angeles City College public speaking class taught by John Mattson. Mattson assigned the students, including Jonathan Lopez to give an informational speech. Lopez decided to talk about why he voted in favor of California's Proposition 8. Mattson cut off Lopez' speech, angry with Lopez for talking about religion.

Lopez says his professor called him a "fascist bastard" and refused to let him finish his speech against same-sex marriage during...class.

When Lopez tried to find out his mark for the speech, the professor, John Matteson, allegedly told him to "ask God what your grade is," the suit says.

I know this is difficult for you to believe, that in our modern school system there is still so much ignorance and hatred that a student would get interrupted during an assignment in class, stopped from speaking, called a vicious name in front of the rest of the class, and then have his beliefs mocked. You would think that we'd have learned by now the ideals of the all-guiding and all-important concept of Tolerence.

Oh wait. I forgot. The concepts of tolerence and free speech only applies to people who aren't Christian. And I forgot that colleges and universities have a Special Dispensation to be the repositories of anti-Christian sentiment. And I also forgot that college and university speech codes, designed to keep harassing speech off the campus, don't apply in the case of religious speech.

To add insult to injury, the school's Dean, Allison Jones, ignored Lopez' complaints and instead sided with two students who were

"deeply offended" by Lopez's address, one of whom stated that "this student should have to pay some price for preaching hate in the classroom."

According to the Dean, Jonathan Lopez is the guilty party in this case by daring to talk about his beliefs in a public speaking class, then getting vilified by his teacher and by two students who were "deeply offended."

Lopez, apparently, isn't allowed to be offended by Mattson calling him a "fascist bastard" or by telling him to "ask God what your grade is." The school would never consider that harassment or hate speech.

There is a bright side to this, freedom of speech is still protected under the First Amendment. Lopez, helped by the Alliance Defense Fund, is suing the district and rightly so.

Alliance staff counsel David J. Hacker said Lopez was a victim of religious discrimination.

"He was expressing his faith during an open-ended assignment, but when the professor disagreed with some minor things he mentioned, the professor shut him down," Hacker said. "Basically, colleges and universities should give Christian students the same rights to free expression as other students."

If this case goes according to precedent, the district will lose the suit, pay damages, and be forced to clean up its "tolerant" speech codes.

Read more about this from Mike S. Adams: "Ask God What Your Grade Is."