Crossed wires at Liberalism Central Command

VENTURA, California (AP)—The family of a gay teenager who was fatally shot in class blames the school district for allowing their son to wear makeup and feminine clothing to school—factors the family claims led to the death.

The parents and brother of 15-year-old Larry King of Oxnard filed a personal injury claim against the Hueneme school district seeking unspecified damages for not enforcing the dress code, The Ventura County Star reported.

Amazing. So the school (as discussed previously at VFR) had to allow this tragically messed up boy to wear make-up and feminine clothes and make aggressive homosexual passes at male students, because not allowing him to do so would be to abridge his freedom to express his alternative sexual identity. But the school also had a duty NOT to let him express his alternative sexual identity, because that might provoke fatal violence against him!

What is a liberal school administrator to do?

- end of initial entry -

August 17

MG writes:

It is beyond absurd that Larry King’s family is suing the school over this tragedy. Certainly the school was derelict in its duty to the boy, but how much more so were his parents? They were the ones who gave him, or at least allowed him to possess, female attire, and they let him attend school wearing it. Like the school, they were unwilling or unable to stop this behavior, and the duty of a parent to discipline a child is even stronger than the duty of a school to discipline a student. Who is going to sue them?

Nobody in this case took responsibility for anything. The school did not enforce classroom decorum nor it dress code; the foster parents would not enforce appropriate behavior on their son; the boy’s killer blames sexual harassment, the easy availability of guns, and his young age; and the victim of course, must be excused for his outrageous behavior due to age again, and his sexual orientation. Where have all the adults gone? Liberalism seems to inculcate such a distrust of authority that those who possess it are unwilling to exercise it except in service of explicitly liberal ends. Mr. Auster, you could not have invented a story to better illustrate Western Civilization’s crisis of confidence.

LA replies:

I’d have to check the Newsweek story again that was linked in the earlier VFR entry, but as I remember Larry was not living with his foster parents, but in some kind of half-way house.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 16, 2008 01:00 AM | Send