It’s not just religious liberty though, in fact it’s not even primarily religious liberty. It’s also, of course, not just conservatives.

In a ruling hailed as a major victory by conservatives, Virginia’s Supreme Court on Thursday revived a lawsuit by a teacher who claims his religious liberties and free-speech rights were violated when school officials fired him for refusing to use the pronouns of a transgender student.

It should never be a job requirement to have to remember anyone’s specialty pronouns.

The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the conservative Christian group that is representing Vlaming, called the ruling a “sweeping victory” for free speech and religious rights, and Virginia Attorney General Jason S. Miyares (R) said “it dramatically expands the protection of religious liberty.”

But legal counsel for the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), which has followed the case, called it “dangerous and misguided” and said it gives teachers a right to discriminate. 

Well teachers do have a right to discriminate. They have to do quite a lot of discriminating as part of their job – discriminating between good work and bad work, brilliant work and terrible work. They have to discriminate between wrong answers and right ones.

Shannon Minter, legal director for NCLR, said in a statement that the ruling ignores teachers’ obligations under the law.

“Requiring teachers to treat transgender students equally when they address them in class is about prohibiting discriminatory conduct, not speech,” Minter said. “Such a rule no more restricts protected speech than requiring teachers to treat any other group of students equally.”

But it’s not “equally.” What does remembering to use the wrong pronouns have to do with equality? Nothing.

Vlaming, who taught French, claims in his lawsuit he couldn’t refer to a transitioning student assigned female at birth by masculine pronouns because it violated the tenets of his Christian faith.

Well it doesn’t really. Jesus never said anything about pronouns. It’s not a faith issue at all, it’s a language issue, a reality issue, a truth issue, a nuisance issue. It’s a nuisance to have to remember to use opposite pronouns; it’s not something that comes naturally.

Vlaming, a six-year teacher, told the student he would use the student’s male name in class and try not to use pronouns in an effort to balance the student’s wishes and his own religious beliefs, according to the lawsuit.

But school administrators told him it would violate a nondiscrimination policy to not use the student’s masculine pronouns and issued Vlaming warnings, according to the suit. When Vlaming still refused to use the masculine pronouns, the lawsuit says, the school board fired him in December 2018.

That’s so ridiculous. What does a nondiscrimination policy have to do with using the wrong pronouns for some but not all students?

The ACLU of Virginia said in a statement that “public school officials are still bound by federal law to not discriminate against their students.”

But it’s not “discriminating against students” to fail to memorize specialty pronouns. Ordering teachers to use specialty pronouns is more like discrimination than failure to use them is.