Punching Back: Peter Vlaming Fights for Conscience for Himself and All Teachers
Yesterday, Peter Vlaming, after having his livelihood completely disrupted last December when he was fired by the West Point School Board for not addressing a student with opposite-sex pronouns, announced he is suing the School Board for violating his constitutional rights of free speech and the exercise of his religious convictions.
You may recall that Mr. Vlaming was fired following a hearing before the Board not for what he said, but because of what he didn’t say in refusing to use male pronouns when addressing a female student who, after two years in Mr. Vlaming’s French class, decided to begin identifying as a boy. In fact, in an effort be respectful of the student, he committed to using the student’s newly chosen (traditionally male) name, and to refrain from using any pronouns at all for the student, so as not to offend the student or anyone else.
All Mr. Vlaming did was follow his conscience, which could not permit him to speak objective falsehoods that distort the true nature of male and female as God created them. But of course, as we should all know by now, anything short of total celebration and participation in someone else’s sexual expressions is simply unacceptable to the ever-growing purveyors of sexual totalitarianism.
We stand with Mr. Vlaming who is standing up for his own conscience rights and the conscience rights of teachers across Virginia. And we are glad to see he is ‘punching back’ against the Board’s blatant and unlawful religious discrimination, by seeking $1 million in damages for current and future lost wages, benefits, loss of reputation, and pain and suffering for he and his family of six. And we’re thrilled that our friends at Alliance Defending Freedom will be representing him in this fight.
Please continue to pray for Peter as he stands in the gap for all teachers to be able to live according to their conscience and not be forced to express untrue messages which they disbelieve, but especially when it violates their deeply held religious convictions.
For more background on Peter Vlaming’s story, please read our blogs:
