Has the boot param syntax/semantics changed?

[Bob Gustafson]

I have been using 'selinux=1 enforcing=0' with the thought that my system
will work, but if things are not right, an avc message will appear in my
log files.

The /etc/selinux/config file had the contents

[root at hoho2 user1]# cat /etc/selinux/config
# This file controls the state of SELinux on the system.
# SELINUX= can take one of these three values:
#       enforcinfg - SELinux security policy is enforced.
#       permissive - SELinux prints warnings instead of enforcing.
#       disabled - No SELinux policy is loaded.
#SELINUX=disabled
SELINUX=enforcing
SELINUXTYPE=strict
POLICYTYPE=strict
[root at hoho2 user1]#

I was dutifully going to 'init 1' and doing 'fixfiles relabel' after every
update of policy or selinux related software - and then rebooting.

[I still got lots of avc messages]

Then I changed the /etc/selinux/config to the version shown below and rebooted.

I got far less messages, and I was even able to go to root when clicking on
gnome applications that required higher priority (with above config
contents, whatever I typed was not enough, gnome kept coming back for more)

[root at hoho2 user1]# cat /etc/selinux/config
# This file controls the state of SELinux on the system.
# SELINUX= can take one of these three values:
#       enforcinfg - SELinux security policy is enforced.
#       permissive - SELinux prints warnings instead of enforcing.
#       disabled - No SELinux policy is loaded.
#SELINUX=disabled
SELINUX=enforcing
#SELINUXTYPE=strict
SELINUXTYPE=permissive
POLICYTYPE=strict
[root at hoho2 user1]#

My assumption has been that the boot parameters override the contents of
the /etc/selinux/config file, and that the boot param 'enforcing=0' will
make the selinux a permissive one.

Have these assumptions changed?