BLOG POST: Acting in porn is grounds for immediate dismissal because . . . . . . .

Before I even got through reading the article the following popped to mind.

The trouble with her dismissal is that the only reason behind it is the provincial attitude that sex isn't to be appreciated by anyone other than those directly involved, and even they shouldn't enjoy it too much. Here is a completely legal display of a human interaction that almost everyone happily participates in. In fact, it's so valued that people write and buy books so as to do it better.

My question is: if extra marital sex is so common, (97% of Americans have sex before they marry*) why would anyone see it as wrong? Reasonable people wouldn't, so it's obviously quite normal. And if so many choose to engage in it must be quite desirable.

Secondly, if sex is not only a desirable and normal undertaking why would the filming of it be questionable? It certainly doesn't hurt anyone, which is confirmed by its legality. 

So here we have a film of a legal, desirable, and normal act between consenting adults. So far anyone see anything wrong here? I don't. In fact, I don't see any basic difference between this and two people playing a piano-violin duet while being video-taped.

Now let's say there are people who like watching others enjoying themselves in this legal and normal manner. Are they the worse off for it? Evidently not because the law has seen fit to allow it: people are free to watch others having sex without repercussions, as are the participants in the film.

So far then we're talking about a legal, normal, desirable event made for the pleasure of others. Not at all different than making a recording of a Brahms concerto. So where does the onus attached to porn come from; one so strong that it can compel people to take away the right to work of others? It's purely a small-minded, puritanical notion that sex is dirty. Hypocritical in the extreme, but their we have it. This is why the school district could do no better than the vacuous, "[she]had no business teaching children," and why the district's attorney came up with the asinine

“This case is about whether the students of the Oxnard School District are required to incorporate into their learning environment the choice Ms. Halas made to be a porn star,"

"Incorporate into their learning environment"? Nice double speak.  

What has happened Halas is a crime, and I hope she wins her appeal.

Source: http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/current-events/143999-acting-porn-grounds-immediate-dismissal-because-4.html

Stacie Halas, California Teacher Fired For Porn Star Past, Loses Appeal

OXNARD, Calif. -- A middle-school science teacher fired after students learned she had appeared in pornographic movies had hoped not just to get her job back, but to set a precedent for people looking to escape an embarrassing personal history.

A three-judge commission put a decisive stop to both, saying firmly and unanimously that Stacie Halas should not be in the classroom.

"We were hoping we could show you could overcome your past," Halas lawyer Richard Schwab said Tuesday. "I think she's representative of a lot of people who may have a past that may not involve anything illegal or anything that hurts anybody."

Judge Julie Cabos-Owen said such a past matters in an age when technology makes porn easy to access and hard to bury.

"Although her pornography career has concluded, the ongoing availability of her pornographic materials on the Internet will continue to impede her from being an effective teacher and respected colleague," Cabos-Owen said in the 46-page decision issued Friday by the Commission on Professional Competence.

Halas, 32, was continually deceitful about her nine-month career in porn before she went to work at the school, the judges said.

Schwab said Halas "was being honest and forthright, but was embarrassed and humiliated by her past experience in the adult industry."

Halas was fired in April from her job as a science teacher at Haydock Intermediate School in Oxnard after online videos of her in porn were discovered by students and teachers.

Student claims that the teacher was moonlighting as a porn star were initially dismissed after school officials said they couldn't find any images of her on the Internet – but they were using the school's computers, which don't allow access to porn.

Teachers then showed administrators downloads of Halas' sex videos from their smartphones.

In hearings, former assistant principal Wayne Saddler testified that at the start of a sex video, Halas talked about being a teacher and he felt her effectiveness in the classroom had been compromised.

After rumors of her performance surfaced, profanity was etched on Halas' classroom window, a teacher testified.

Schwab has said Halas did not star in pornographic movies while teaching in any district. He said she took parts only during an eight-month period from 2005 to 2006 because of financial problems after her boyfriend abandoned her.

District superintendent Jeff Chancer applauded the commission's ruling.

Halas' decision to "engage in pornography was incompatible with her responsibilities as a role model for students," Chancer said in a statement.

Source:  Huffington Post