Area worker fired for rant wants to be paid.

Last spring, an employee with the Seminole County clerk’s office made national news when he called for the lynch-mob-style execution of Florida’s first black chief prosecutor.

Like many people, assistant financial director Stan McCullars was angry about Orange-Osceola State Attorney Aramis Ayala’s decision not to seek the death penalty for accused cop-killer Markeith Loyd.

Unlike most people, though, he took to Facebook to declare: “Maybe SHE should get the death penalty.”

And: “She should be tarred and feathered, if not hung from a tree.”

The comments cost McCullars his job.

Now he’s arguing that he was unfairly ousted and that the public should pay him for the “mental suffering” he has endured.

In a lawsuit against against Seminole Clerk Grant Maloy, McCullars wants money — possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars — for emotional distress, lost wages, future lost wages, attorney fees and punitive damages.

All because, he says, his First Amendment right to free speech was violated.

It strikes me that, in the rant-first-think-later age of social media, it’s time for a refresher on what the First Amendment actually means.

It means that you have a right to speak your mind.

It does not mean that you can’t face consequences for doing so.

It means you can say vile, bizarre or offensive things without worrying about the government throwing you in jail.

It does not mean that you are guaranteed to an $86,000-a-year paycheck, regardless of how you behave. I think most of us know this. I know, for instance, that if I took to Twitter to trash my boss or spout racist views, I could lose my job.

Why? Because I have a constitutional right to speak my mind — not a constitutional right to be a newspaper columnist.

That second part is up to my employer. And employers are within their rights to question an employee’s judgment and consider how statements reflect on their offices.

We saw the same thing last month when a University of Tampa instructor lost his job after tweeting that the deadly floodwaters in Houston were “instant Karma” for Texans who voted for Donald Trump.

The university decided those comments didn’t reflect the private school’s values … the same way Maloy said McCullars’ comments didn’t reflect his.

But McCullars’ attorney, respected First Amendment lawyer Howard Marks, says “Private employers and public employers are completely different” since public employers are essentially the government reacting to speech.

While acknowledging the matter is complex, he said courts often look at whether the employee made the statement as a private