Jeff is right that the woman is allowed to hold such views. You can’t regulate that. OTOH, as Modern Esquire points out, she’s in a position of power and publicly espousing some upsetting views that she is in a position to act upon in a way that, say, a private citizen wingnut blogger is not.

She should remain free to espouse her viewpoints, but no longer free to enforce them as a public safety official. If the investigation shows no history of inappropriate behavior at work, then termination might be harsh. But I think the city should work very hard to ensure that any future relationship is one where her ability to act inappropriately at work is severely restricted by placing her in job roles with little to no opportunity to interact with citizens.

If the city is sued by someone who is Jewish or African-American (or both) who says that this officer either filed false charges against them or used excessive force and it comes out that the city was aware of her racist and anti-semetic views and did nothing, what then? Detective Fuhrman ring a bell?

The fact is that she is in a position of trust in which she has direct access to subject anyone she wants to the criminal justice system. These views suggests that she is liable to use the discretion vested in her inappropriately.

She decided to inject herself in a public forum and mentioned her job in law enforcement as a way to present herself with credibility. Such an invocation of her employment now puts the city in a position to decide whether they want to be associated with one of its employee’s views or not.

She is free to hold her beliefs. Her employer is free, though, to say that they will not allow their employees to invoke their employment status as a way to associate their views with the city to make them seem more legitimate.

Freedom of speech has never meant freedom from consequences.

Do a “whois lookup” for thepatriotdames.com and you can get http://www.whois.net/whois_new.cgi?d=thepatriotdames&tld=com their mailing address & phone number. Maybe we should call and tell them what we think of ‘em!?

The mayor is doing what he has to do politically, but he’s wrong.

We still have a first amendment to our Constitution (despite the best efforts of Neo/Theocons) and her video is protected speech of the high test order.

It’s total, ignorant bullshit, but it’s still protected speech.

The response to offensive speech must always be truth, not censorship.

Drop me an email if you’d like to hear what I’ve got in the works.

B’shalom,

Jeff