Sniffing around people's bedrooms

From the Manawatu Standard yesterday, the latest appalling attack on the private lives of teachers:

The New Zealand Teachers Council is investigating a Manawatu principal after his school reported allegations that the man attempted to sell pornography online.

The complaint was laid after a Trade Me account with an email address using the partial name of the principal posted gay porn movie The Club for sale on the auction site.

In an unprecedented case, the Teachers Council is investigating the incident to determine whether the principal – who cannot be named for legal reasons – breached the industry's code of ethics.

As the article notes, this is perfectly legal (provided the buyer was over 18), and did not involve a use of school resources. The DVD was sold from the man's home computer. So the Teacher's Council is investigating someone - and could conceivably censure or deregister them - for private, legal conduct occurring entirely within their own home. The fact that its a gay porn movie gives it an air of homophobia, but OTOH the sorts of people offended by gay porn are likely to be offended by straight porn as well. The problem is more that school boards and the Teachers Council think they have a licence to sniff around in people's bedrooms, and sack them for being "indecent" or "breaking the public trust" if they don't like what they find. And that is a gross invasion of personal privacy.

Teachers, like anyone else, are entitled to have a private life. Teachers, like anyone else, are entitled to have sex. Teachers, like anyone else, are entitled to look at porn, gay or straight. None of these things is anyone's business but their own. And if anyone thinks worse of them for it, that's their problem. If they don't want to be offended, they shouldn't go sniffing in other people's bedrooms.