Judges Gone Wild

The Ninth Circus Court of Appeals is at it again. In another fit of joke jurisprudence, it has concluded that municipal employers have the right to censor the words "natural family," "marriage" and "family values" because that is hate speech and could scare workers.
The decision of the dolts was handed down in a dispute over the promotion of the homosexual lifestyle within the city offices of Oakland. Northern California strikes again.

It found that municipalities have a right to dictate what form an employee's speech may take, even if it is in regard to controversial public issues. Heaven forbid we would protect free speech when the jester judges disapprove.

"Public employees are permitted to curtail employee speech as long as their 'legitimate administrative interests' outweigh the employee's interest in freedom of speech," said the court's opinion by judges B. Fletcher, Clifton and Ikuta, who noted that their writings are "not appropriate for publication."

"The district court appropriately described [the Christians' speech rights] as 'vanishingly small,'" the opinion continued.

However, as the Pro-Family Law Center noted, the court "completely failed to address the concerns of the appellants with respect to the fact that the City of Oakland's Gay-Straight Employees Alliance was openly allowed to attack the Bible in widespread city e-mails, to deride Christian values as antiquated, and to refer to Bible-believing Christians as hateful. When the plaintiffs attempted to refute this blatant attack on people of faith, they were threatened with immediate termination by the City of Oakland. The Ninth Circuit did not feel that the threat of immediate termination had any effect on free speech."

The Pro-Family Law Center plans an appeal and will take the case all the way to the Supreme Court. They have a good chance of success since the decisions of the Ninth Circus have been skipped over more times than a crosswalk in San Francisco.

Hat tip, WorldNetDaily.