Lighten up, people

I have a feeling that most of the people involved in this story would faint dead away or possibly even have a stroke were they ever to wade into ace's comments:

A teacher who forced a pupil to write "I am a retard" 100 times was acquitted by an Italian court on Wednesday of abuse charges.

The teacher, whose identity was withheld to protect her privacy, forced the punishment on the 12-year-old boy after he blocked a fellow pupil from going to the toilet and called him "gay" and "girly."

The parents had sought 25,000 euros ($33,580) in damages and a public prosecutor had called for a two-month prison sentence, but the court cleared the teacher, a court source said.

Okay, so what amounts to an adult calling a kid a retard is kind of harsh, but thirty three grand and two months in the joint? For that? Give me a break.

And there's even more oversensitivity to go around, this time from the defendant...

The teacher said her punishment of the boy had been appropriate, particularly after a widely publicized case of an adolescent who committed suicide in Italy, apparently after receiving taunts at school about being homosexual.

When the hell did the macho swagger of the Italian people get replaced by the spirit of Sexual Harassment Panda?

Actually, that's the one bright spot that I see in this story—that the kid who got called "gay" and "girly" didn't sue for sexual harrasment. You know that would've happened here.