If you’ve forgotten who Peter Vlaming is, he’s a French Teacher in Virginia who (in 2018) was removed for refusing to address a Transgender student by their preferred gender/pronoun. Vlaming was accused of bullying and discrimination and let go. He sued on religious and free speech grounds.
In a gratifying win for religious freedom and free speech, the Virginia Supreme Court concluded Thursday that embattled Virginia high school teacher Peter Vlaming, who had been fired over his refusal to use a student’s preferred pronouns because of his religious faith, was protected by the free exercise and free speech clauses of the Virginia Constitution.
The majority decision, which was written by Justice D. Arthur Kelsey, is a landmark victory for freedom of conscience and expression in the state. In its opinion, the court held that religious exercise is protected under the Virginia Constitution unless it threatens the public safety or order.
The case returns to the trial court to address “constitutional, statutory and breach-of-contract claims” with the State Supreme Court ruling attached. A ruling that makes the school’s claims impossible to defend. It based his termination on the presumption of what amounts to bullying, framing his beliefs as a threat, but the court tore that up and threw it away. (Related: Students Walkout in Support of Teacher Fired for Not Using Transgender Pronoun.)
The court wrote that the issue was not whether the school board’s policies forbidding discrimination and harassment applied (as the school board had asserted) or did not apply (as Vlaming had asserted) to the compelled-speech situation Vlaming alleged. Rather, the issue was whether Vlaming’s sincerely held religious beliefs caused him to commit overt acts that “invariably posed some substantial threat to public safety, peace or order,” and if so, whether, under a “strict scrutiny” review of the claim, the government’s compelling interest in protecting the public from that threat could be satisfied by “less restrictive means.”
The court wrote that when religious liberty merges with free-speech protections, as it did in Vlaming’s case, mere “objectionable” and “hurtful” religious speech (or in Vlaming’s case, “nonspeech”) wasn’t enough to meet this strict scrutiny standard.
Your feelings don’t trump his natural rights.
That’ll leave a mark and provide hope for educators across the state – especially in places like the infamous Loudon County.
Alliance Defending Freedom is handling the Vlaming Case.
