A Trump-supporting Minnesota mother sparked outrage on social media after she spoke at a school board meeting in Forest Lake, Minnesota, to defend her kids' First Amendment right to use the R-word in school since she "regularly uses" it.
She said:
"I was reading the harassment policy and I just wanted to share some concerns. I understand that there might be some legislative statute that you're trying to meet with language but you do have a policy ... that brings some concern to me that might be interpreted in a way that could violate religious freedom or freedom of speech because it's so general." ...
The woman said that an example of a "religious belief" she holds is to not allow anyone to refer to her children by their pronouns and to not use pronouns when addressing other people at all "because we're all born male or female."
Then she added:
"If my child called somebody, even unintentionally, the wrong thing, according to this policy language, that could be interpreted as harassment."
"I am totally supportive in creating a great place for everybody, but I just think we have to be cautious that it's not going to violate religious freedoms and freedom of speech. An example of a violation of freedom of speech, I recently learned from one of my kids in high school that a word that I regularly use that I think is a regular word is apparently on the don't use list."
"So, I learned that from my high school children, which is the word 'ret**d.' 'Ret**d' means slow. It's in the dictionary. It literally, you know, retardant slows down fires. And I did not realize—no, you cannot control my speech, Mr. Rafael."
"So, you cannot. I can use the word ret**d. OK, so this is one of those violations of freedom of speech that really concerned me. So, I really think there needs to be a lot more caution placed on specific parameters so that you respect those other constitutional rights."
You can hear what she said in the video below.
- YouTubewww.youtube.com
The disgust for her remarks was palpable as soon as they went viral.
How embarrassing.
