Facebook Oversharing Teacher Tells Students to Get Out If They Don't Like "God's Truth"

JERRY BUELL CONFERENCE X390 (GRAB) | ADVOCATE.COM

Jerry Buell at news conference

Although a Florida teacher's incendiary comments on Facebook about same-sex marriage weren't enough to get him fired, he has yet another problem — his course syllabus tells students that he teaches "God's truth," and if you don't like it, then get out.

The new allegation was unveiled Thursday when social studies teacher Jerry Buell defended himself at a news conference hosted by Liberty Counsel, a group that volunteers its lawyers in religious cases across the country. Together they've maintained that Buell had a First Amendment right to react to enactment of marriage equality in New York by calling the development a "cesspool" that made him sick.

"I made a political comment, and all I did was affirm with passion the decision by 62% of the voters in the state of Florida in the constitutional amendment that they had in 2008," Buell argued, according to video from the Orlando Sentinel. "Residents of Florida do not approve of same-sex marriage."

The superintendent sided with Buell on the Facebook question earlier this week, but Orlando news outlets are reporting that Buell's syllabus, which he says he's used for years, is being questioned by school board authorities. The syllabus includes this warning to students: "I am a man of God and I try to be like Jesus every day. I teach God's truth, I make very few compromises. If you believe you may have a problem with that, get your schedule changed, 'cause I ain't changing!"

Liberty Counsel is again saying those comments are protected by Buell's First Amendment rights.

"The school district is saying that might run afoul to what they call the separation of church and state," Buell's attorney Harry Mihet told WFTV. "We are going to have to evaluate the school's position and engage them in some dialogue."

Even before the syllabus was discovered, critics had argued that Buell's statements on Facebook were enough to make gay students feel unwelcome in his classroom and should have led to his firing.

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Reader Comments

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Name: Jimm
Date posted: 8/27/2011 5:18:17 PM
Hometown: Laguna Beach CA

Comment:
I wonder if any of these douche bags have ever stopped to ask themselves how Jesus would handle this
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Name: David Watson
Date posted: 8/27/2011 3:40:44 PM
Hometown: Seattle

Comment:
The NEW face of Bin Laden
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Name: Brian
Date posted: 8/27/2011 2:18:05 PM
Hometown: Los Angeles

Comment:
Gary wrote: "The problem is the difference between "God's truth" and man's truth" ---- That's precisely what I was trying to say in my post. That's why so many brainwashed religious right-wingers are so adamant about promoting "God's law." These people take words that were written by men who were no better than anybody else and somehow construe those same words to personify the laws of God. And people like this have the outright nerve to believe they have the right to judge others and dictate to them how they should or shouldn't be living their lives! Hypocrites, each and every lying one of them!!!
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Name: Gary
Date posted: 8/27/2011 11:51:11 AM
Hometown: Canyon Lake, TX

Comment:
The problem is the difference between "God's truth" and man's truth
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Name: Jeffrey
Date posted: 8/27/2011 11:05:09 AM
Hometown: Cincinnati

Comment:
What baffles me is that this teacher was a "teacher of the year." Didn't the administrators look at his classroom and syllabus before giving him this award? What were the criteria for winning? Syllabi are supposed to be given to the administrators each year, so it's amazing how this escaped them for so long. And for the record, he's nothing like Jesus and I don't think he'd know God's Truth if it bit him in the a**.
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Name: Brian
Date posted: 8/27/2011 2:30:39 AM
Hometown: Los Angeles

Comment:
"critics had argued that Buell's statements on Facebook were enough to make gay students feel unwelcome in his classroom and should have led to his firing." ----- I am in full 100% agreement with this. A self-righteous son-of-a-bitch like that has no business teaching kids. The outright smug attitudes of these arrogant "holier than thou" sycophants, who think they can get away with saying or doing anything they want because of what their religion preaches and who actually have the balls to presume that nobody else will take issue with any of it, seriously needs to be addressed.
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Name: Brian
Date posted: 8/27/2011 2:20:26 AM
Hometown: Los Angeles

Comment:
"...his course syllabus tells students that he teaches "God's truth," and if you don't like it, then get out." ---- See, here's what I find interesting and altogether hysterical. He mentions "God's truth," as though the bible somehow magically appeared in a bolt of lightning from the heavens thousands of years ago with firey sparks and steam rising up from the cover. This doofus, like so many annoying and backwards-thinking bigots these days, is conveniently forgetting one fundamental fact: his precious bible was written by flesh and blood mortal men, NOT God!!!! So, in essence, Jerry Buell should really be calling it "Man's law." Because, in the end, that's all the bible really is.
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Name: Ryan
Date posted: 8/26/2011 9:42:26 PM
Hometown: Indiana

Comment:
Scum. If he wants to preach.....go to a church!! If I had kids, they would be home schooled. Dangerous man.
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Name: Bloodhound
Date posted: 8/26/2011 8:31:15 PM
Hometown: USA

Comment:
Fact Check: (1) Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. (2) In the United States, public schools are banned from conducting religious observances such as prayer. The legal basis for this prohibition is the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which requires that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." Two landmark Supreme Court decisions, Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington School District v. Schempp (1963) established the current prohibition on state-sponsored prayer in schools. Following these two cases came the Court's decision in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971). This ruling established the Lemon test which states that in order to be constitutional under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, any practice sponsored within state run schools (or other public, state sponsored activities) must: 1. Have a secular purpose; 2. Must neither advance nor inhibit religion; and 3. Must not result in an excessive entanglement between government and religion.
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Name: will
Date posted: 8/26/2011 7:45:13 PM
Hometown: tampa

Comment:
Once again I am disgusted to be a resident of Florida. He needs to go the way of the NY County Clerks who refused to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. I wonder where the ACLU is in all of this? Surely there are gay students or non-religous parents of his students that object. Oh wait, this is Florida.

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