Remembering what happened to Gawker and its relevance to the Don't Say Gay Law
Channeling my inner Rachael here.
In 2006, Terry Bollea, aka Hulk Hogan, slept with a woman who was married to Bubba the Love Sponge. That encounter was taped. Gawker decided to run a short extract of the tape on its website in 2012. In 2013, Bollea sued for among other things invasion of privacy. In 2016, a court in Florida found in Bollea's favor and awarded 115 million in damages plus 25 million in punitive damages. Gawker couldn't afford to post bond to appeal so it went bankrupt and eventually settled for 36 million. Despite the fact this was an very strong case to appeal the verdict stood. The fact is Bollea was and is a public figure in every sense of the word. Public figures have a very limited right to privacy. To site one famous example, in 1974, William Stipple, saved President Ford from an assassination attempt. He also was a closeted gay man. A San Francisco paper printed that fact, he sued, and despite it very negatively affecting his life, he lost due to being a public figure. In contrast, Bollea admitted in 2010 that he slept with the woman he was taped with. He was a man who did all he could to be a public figure (unlike Mr. Stipple who was an accidental public figure). But Bollea was bankrolled by Peter Theil who was infuriated he had been outed by Gawker and was able to get a massive favorable verdict from a jury that was understandably disgusted by Gawker's conduct. And Gawker was bankrupted.
Now fast forward to the Don't Say Gay bill. The bill creates a right to sue for any parent who doesn't like what a teacher said about gender, sexual orientation, or for that matter LGBT people from history. Juries sometimes get things wrong. So even if you are of the opinion that this law doesn't ban saying gay above the 3rd grade level, there is clearly ambiguity past 3rd grade (it unambiguously does so k - 3) teachers face lawsuits in front of juries who may be hateful of gay people. So if you teach grade 5 and are married to a person of the same sex, do you risk having a photo on your desk? If you teach grade 6 and a kid talks about his two mothers, do you shut him down? If you teach 9th grade and a kid tells you they are trans do you risk not telling the parents?
Being sued matters, it comes up in back round checks, it harms your credit, it costs money, money you usually don't get back. Plus the jury could get it wrong, it happens, just ask Gawker. No wait you can't, Gawker is bankrupt. Teachers don't have vast resources, and couldn't post an appellate bond if they lose a case.
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