StrangeSox

Obama did the same exact thing in 2008, so I really don't see the issue.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Feb 15, 2012 -> 02:44 PM) The US Magistrate judge in Texas disagrees. I'm phone-posting from a plane so I can't dig it up, but I think I already c&p'd the part of the decision that references Lawrence. I know a posted a link to the case, Wyatt v kisb, so you can find it that way, too.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Feb 15, 2012 -> 01:04 PM) Strangesox, As an aside, I am extremely pro gay rights (marriage, etc). So much so that I believe they should be treated the exact same way I would treat anyone else. Invasion of privacy is an extreme cause of action, it just seems like a misplaced application of law here. If you think they were going after her because she was a lesbian, sue them for discrimination. But invasion of privacy? No one has even suggested that the school would have any issue telling a parent that their child had a relationship with another student. Let alone the parent or student suing the school. It seems like a completely straight forward application of the law. Lawrence defines orientation as a privacy right. The coaches violated the students right by exposing information to the mother.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 15, 2012 -> 01:00 PM) Ok, so if a teacher tells my parents he saw me kissing a girl in the hallway, I can sue because he's invaded my privacy of sexual orientation right? minority class vs norm, but legally maybe. That would depend on a legal expectation of privacy.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 15, 2012 -> 12:58 PM) My point was that this line of judicial thinking inherently accepts the viewpoint that homosexuality is bad, whether they intend it or not. You're segmenting out sexual orientation, but only homosexuality, as something private. You're picking and choosing. It's akin to affirmative action - discrimination is fine, but only when used in what we, a panel of judges, determines to be the right situation. No, it doesn't. It accepts orientation as private and nothing more.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 15, 2012 -> 12:43 PM) But you're skipping the first step, which is whether the information disclosed is "private" such that an invasion of that privacy is actionable. What these cases are essentially saying is that sexual orientation is now "private" information that shouldn't be disclosed without approval. Inherent in saying that is that something is wrong with being gay. You wouldn't see an invasion of privacy claim for outing me as being heterosexual right? This is ridiculous. Private information is not by definition "bad" information.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 15, 2012 -> 12:53 PM) To get to this: you have to decide this: Otherwise the fact that I love singing in the shower (or any other number of things I don't want people to know) is private and i should be able to sue if someone lets it out. Lawrence explicitly lists sexual orientation as a private right along with some others.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Feb 15, 2012 -> 12:27 PM) Jenks said it better than me. The right to privacy doesn't revolve around the moral acceptability of the private information. That is a terrible argument.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Feb 15, 2012 -> 11:22 AM) Ultimately the issue will be damages. If they are just nominal its a waste of everyone's time. If Im the Defendant, Im arguing that there are no damages, that there is nothing wrong with being a lesbian, so outing her is as irrelevant as saying that their daughter came to school with purple hair. The rest just seems like commonplace school nonsense. Teachers, etc try and use leverage to get information from students. Coming out is a pretty big deal for many people.

QUOTE (Tex @ Feb 15, 2012 -> 11:58 AM) If you have knowledge of an adult having sex with a minor child. Seems like a police matter. Let them investigate and decide. Now do you also tell her parents that you notified the police? They had no such knowledge and it is defensible in Texas.

Politifact continues to bolster their reputation as really, really terrible at actually determining if something is a "fact": Unfortunately, Adair's defense serves to prove Maddow's point and negate his own. In the statement in question, Florida Senator Marco Rubio said the majority of Americans were conservatives. In his statement, Adair admits that "the number was short of a majority." Yet PolitiFact arrives at the conclusion that Rubio's statement is "Mostly True." "It wasn't quite a majority, but was close," Adair writes in his email. So Rubio's statement isn't true. It's false.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 15, 2012 -> 11:00 AM) Her denial of that was probably enough to defeat the motion and get it to a jury. Well and her mother's affidavit claiming she didn't actually know until the coaches told her.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 15, 2012 -> 11:00 AM) It would be interesting to find if the school would call home if they found out that a 16 year old girl was having sex with her boyfriend. Plantiffs filed evidence indicating that they've never done so, leading the judge to agree that the school's policy claims were post hoc attempts to justify their actions.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 15, 2012 -> 10:57 AM) I'm not making a value judgement. I'm talking about the legal aspects here. I'm not sure how the courts resolve that conflict (or if they can), but minors still have constitutional rights at school, and those rights include a right to sexual orientation privacy.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 15, 2012 -> 10:55 AM) I just don't see how you can be "outed" about something you already expect/assume/have suspicions about. Suspicions, btw, that were so strong that she asked about it on more than one occasion. She thought her daughter might be gay and asked her about it. Her daughter denied it. Her daughter's coaches then told her that their daughter admitted to dating an 18 year old girl. That seems like a crystal-clear violation of privacy to me. Absent the coaches' actions, the daughter's sexuality would still be a secret from her mother (if that's what she desired). Right, and so far there wasn't convincing evidence that she was openly gay to dismiss the suit, but it'll be left up to the trier of the facts.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 15, 2012 -> 10:53 AM) Evidence that short term austerity disallows long term growth? It doesn't, necessarily. But there doesn't seem to be any convincing evidence that severe austerity measures actually result in better outcomes down the road. We could cut our own spending to 10% GDP. Sure, eventually the economy would recover and we'd have less debt, but that first 50 years or so would be a real b****.

But if severe austerity measures keep knocking the economy down, debt won't get any better.

Also FYI parental consent for administration of medication at schools is not universal: http://www.healthinschools.org/Health-in-S...in-Schools.aspx

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 15, 2012 -> 10:41 AM) to the parents they are calling to ask if their kids can take medications. I'd argue that's a violation of privacy as well since minors can legally purchase over-the-counter and prescription medication without parental knowledge. FWIW there's a medical concern with administering aspirin to children under the age of 19 when they have fevers. A law review article making the case

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 15, 2012 -> 10:40 AM) How did the coaches "confirm" it? I'd be arguing that the coaches telling her wasn't "outing" her any more than whatever other evidence led to the mother's suspicions before all of this happened. The kid could have easily refuted it. "Mom, they're lying, they just don't like me. Hell, they kicked me off the team!" Again, I think this was inappropriate. Not arguing that. They disclosed that she was in a homosexual relationship. I'm not sure how much more explicitly you can confirm that. Someone could always deny disclosed information and lie about its veracity, but that doesn't mean their privacy wasn't violated. "she could have lied to her mom" isn't a winning defense.

SSshack finally on the same side of an argument

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 15, 2012 -> 10:29 AM) They why do schools require parental approval for even an aspirin to be taken/ Liability would be my guess.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 15, 2012 -> 10:22 AM) According to the link provided by SS, the mother also had suspicions about it, so it probably wasn't a complete shock: The coaches disclosed private information that the mother was unaware of that unambiguously revealed the daughter's sexual orientation. Even if the mother was suspicious, they still violated her privacy by confirming those suspicions. The only question in my mind is whether they had an obligation or duty to report the rumored relationship. Given that the age difference was less than 3 years and that they had no knowledge of any physical relationship, it seems like a clear "no."

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 15, 2012 -> 10:03 AM) In a school setting, kids have zero expectation of privacy. The courts have pretty well vetted that.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 15, 2012 -> 10:19 AM) yeah the false imprisonment claim is pretty weak here. She voluntarily went into the room and there wasn't any evidence that she couldn't leave if she wanted to. "The Coaches dismissed the remainder of the team, lead S.W. into an empty locker room, and locked the door behind them."