South Carolina Attorney General Blasts ‘Preferred Pronouns’

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I caught some grief this week for publishing an article which failed to use the preferred pronouns of the person who murdered six people in Nashville last year in the worst mass shooting in Tennessee history.

As a libertarian, I’ve generally tried to respect people’s right to call themselves what they want – and to identify themselves as they please – provided these manifestations of mental illness do not demand compulsory compliance, promote inherent unfairness or involve taxpayer-funded indoctrination.

On an interpersonal level, I believe it’s polite to address people the way they choose to be addressed… or at the very least not to make a scene in refusing to do so. Unfortunately, one of the most insidious aspects of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris‘ bid to rewrite Title IX protections is its attempt to make the use of preferred pronouns mandatory.

That’s a fundamental violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, people, as one of the federal judges who has struck down the Biden/Harris rewrite recently noted.

This week, attorneys general in 21 states have filed a friend of the court brief with the U.S. court of appeals for the sixth circuit – which handles cases from Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. At issue? An Ohio school district that is forcing students to use preferred pronouns – or face punishment.

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The case involves the Olentangy local school district board of education – a Columbus-area education bureaucracy which recently passed a policy punishing those who “fail to address a student by (his or her) preferred pronouns.”

According to S.C. attorney general Alan Wilson, one of the state prosecutors who has signed on to this brief, a three-judge panel of the sixth circuit erred in concluding that the Olentangy policies “don’t impermissibly compel student speech or prefer a viewpoint affirming gender identity.”

“At its heart, this case isn’t about transgenderism, it’s about the frightening idea that the government can force people to use particular words and punish them if they don’t,” Wilson said. “The supreme court of the United States ruled back in 1969 that public school students don’t shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate, so how can a school district compel them to use certain pronouns?”

According to the brief, “the First Amendment does not allow school officials to coerce students into expressing messages inconsistent with the students’ values.” In fact, according to the filing, it “stringently limits a State’s authority to compel a private party to express a view with which the private party disagrees.”

Earlier this year, U.S. district court judge John W. Broomes ruled that Biden/Harris’ attempt to make the use of preferred pronouns mandatory ran afoul of the First Amendment.

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RELATED | TRANS KILLER’S MANIFESTO PUBLISHED

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In his ruling (.pdf), Broomes argued the regulation would be “compelling speech that aligns with Defendants’ ideology, censoring speech through content-based restrictions and viewpoint discrimination, chilling speech through vague and overbroad language, and forcing individuals to engage in speech that violates their sincerely held beliefs.”

According to the judge, the imposition of such an affirmative preferred pronoun mandate “violates the First Amendment.”

I concur. While each of us has an obligation to civility – and should conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the ideals we purport to uphold – there is no universe in which government should be permitted to dictate what pronouns people use in addressing others.

Especially if the “preferred” pronouns are contrary to their actual pronouns.

As I’ve often noted, you can identify as a gardening hose if you want… but that doesn’t compel the rest of the world to acknowledge your mental illness.

BANNER VIA: Dylan Nolan

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THE BRIEF…

(U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …

Will Folks is the owner and founding editor of FITSNews. Prior to founding his own news outlet, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina, bass guitarist in an alternative rock band and bouncer at a Columbia, S.C. dive bar. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.

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