Talk Elections

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/02/29/3459837/missouri-teacher-planning-same.html

Absolutely disgusting.

I'd say the school went as far as it could to give him the benefit of the doubt about the extent of his relationship.  (After all, two males who live together need not be in a sexual relationship.)  But marriage crosses a bright line in Catholic doctrine and he was teaching in a Catholic school.  It's not surprising in the least that he was fired.

Religions should be allowed to practice their beliefs and if that means letting someone go who does not hold to Catholic doctrine, then that's the beauty of our country and what I love about America. I feel bad for the teacher and don't find anything wrong with homosexuals who want to be together, but that's a different story. It's times like this that make me proud to be an American.

Wait. A Catholic school firing an employee for being gay makes you proud to be an American?

This is neither surprising nor disgusting. Same-sex marriages go against Roman Catholic doctrine so the school's decision to fire an employee who wants to have a same-sex marriage appears consistent and logical to me. Of course, it would be a very different case if this had been a secular school, but under this specific circumstance it is justified. It would make no sense if a Catholic school ignored the doctrine of the Roman Catholic church.

I understand the church following its own teachings, but I don't see what this has to do with employment.

The church is welcome to condemn same sex marriage, but I don't think a fair argument can be made that this teacher was any less qualified to teach his subject because he happens to go against church teaching.

Catholic schools are there to teach students about their religion in a way that public schools in the US can't, but that doesn't mean they should be allowed to discriminate in employment. This goes beyond how far I think religious freedom extends.

are you sure your not a member of the KKK (in around an hour you proved yourself to be an anti Semite and anti Catholic next comes your attacking blacks?)

I agree with this. The idea that absolutely everyone working at a catholic school must live a life completely in accordance with catholic teachings is moronic. Would you fire teachers if they didn't want to sign a pledge guaranteeing that the only contraception they use is abstention?

so let me get this straight for all you anti Catholics
it's moral for NY state to fire Town Clerks for following the religion and refusing to "marry" 2 people of the same sex despite the fact there supposedly is freedom of religion in this country.

but it' immoral for a religious school to fire someone for doing something that is sacrilegious in that religion.

I'll bet you'll all feel differently if it was a Muslim school.

In short religious schools need to legally be allowed to hire and fire teachers (even secular ones) based on their religious tenants or else there is no freedom of religion in this country.

if theoretically this went to court and the music teacher won the case the US might have even surpassed Czarist Russia in lack of freedom of religion.  Thank God the supreme court recently decided that religious schools have the legal right to fire whoever they want before this story broke.

Ah yes, Christians are being persecuted in America. I almost forgot.

Both legal and proper, of course. Quite settled law.

Whether something is legal and "settled" isn't relevant. It's about whether it's a good thing to do. And if it should be legal.

They need to worry more about their priests being pedophiles than OMGZ THE GAYZ11!!

Not surprising but really ridiculous.

This is exactly why I left the Catholic Church.

Less religion = less problems and more effective use of the time we have solving the real problems in this world.

The opportunity cost of religion is staggering.

Shameful and disgusting

I disagree here. I think the fact that the school's decision to fire this teacher based on the reasons they have given is legal (according to the Supreme Court ruling of January that is mentioned in the article) is very relevant. While it can still be discussed whether such firings are "a good thing" or whether they "should be legal" or not, the obvious legality of this firing should make people who are always ready to shout "scandal!" or "this is another instance of religious extremism!" a bit more careful.

But molesting children merely gets one reassigned. Go figure out organized religion. Gays need the same protection from the tyranny of nutters that blacks enjoy.

Did you bother to even read the link provided in the original post?

He was not fired for being gay.  The school had already known about that.

He was not fired for being in an open relationship with another man.  That was also already known by the school.

He was fired because he planned to enter into a marriage and at that point engaged in behavior that was unequivocally against Catholic doctrine.

I think it is reasonable that an organization that holds certain philosophical positions requires that its employees follow those positions.

So, you'd support the church in firing a woman for using birth control? Or a Jehovah's Witness school firing somebody who received a life-saving blood transfusion?

I bet you would.

Wouldn't the key word here be "Catholic"?

Why shouldn't the school have done just that?

Fake Christian.

Your position seems contrary to what I would consider proper Christian values.

Why? An institution that opposes same-sex marriage fires an individual who is taking part in one. Perhaps the firing was improper (although I do not believe that), but it was most definitely not contrary to Christian values.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

Yes. My libertarian streak shows up here.

Private employment is a private matter and the government should have no role in the decisions of who is hired and fired.  No one was forcing that teacher to continue working for a Catholic school when he decided he could no longer act in accordance with Catholic doctrines.  Why should a Catholic school be forced to continue employ him?  It's the other side of the same coin.

If you think that the church in question (or for that matter, a non-church employer who uses their religious beliefs to decide who to hire) is horrible for doing that, then don't patronize that church.  Just don't get the government involved in telling private entities how they may decide to hire and fire.

So you're against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Gotcha.

Just Title VII thereof (employment discrimination) as it interferes with freedom of association, a negative right, in order to secure a right to demand employment, which is a positive right.  Negative rights, which seek to keep people from being forced to take action, are in my opinion more important than positive rights which require people to be forced to do things to secure them.

Not a big fan of Title II (public accommodations) as it too interferes with freedom of association, but it can be justified as a means of protecting freedom of travel, which is also a negative right. (Which it does in the case of hotels, motels, restaurants, and gas stations, but not with respect to theaters.)  However, Title II has largely achieved its aim and while there no doubt would be some public accommodations that would discriminate if it were repealed, I strongly doubt that it would do so to the degree that would seriously impair freedom of travel.

The rest of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 I'm a big fan of as it acts to prohibit discrimination by the government, both Federal and State.

What makes you love casting stones so much?

Uh, you know the KKK aren't too fond of gays either...

Since I voted for a black for President in 2008 and will this year as well I think it's safe to say you won't see me attacking blacks anytime soon, I've voted for other blacks and have also voted for Catholics and Jews. Your standards for anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic are pretty comical.

Ernest always comes up with the lamest excuses to support Republicans and right-wing positions. Now that Alcon and I have changed our avatars, and Modu seems to be gone, I think Ernest safely takes the "Fakest Independent" title.

I thought Muon was a Republican, not an Indy. At least by avatar.

I think I meant to say MODU (I-VA).

At risk of having my D-WA avatar revoked and my moderate hero card restored, I completely understand why Ernest is uncomfortable with government legislation on this sort of thing.  As much as I think these people's views are distasteful and wrong, I'm not sure about popular, representative government dictating what are reasonable grounds to engage in consensual economic activities and what aren't.

I understand there are issues with this at extremes, and I'm not comfortable with them either, but this isn't an easy issue for me.

An employer firing somebody for being black/gay/whatever is consensual?

An employer being forced to employ someone they don't want is consensual?

Consent requires both parties to agree, not just one.  By your argument, divorce should only be granted if all spouses agreed to it.

Once again, would a Catholic school fire a teacher for having a heterosexual wedding in a non-Catholic church? This is also an "invalid marriage" just like a same-sex one according to their rules, at least if the teacher was baptized Catholic, regardless of it they currently are active in the church or even if they've fully converted to something else. The Catholic church used to go so far as to say that it was a sin to even attend such a wedding and thus yes it was quite common for parents to not attend their sons and daughters' weddings as a result, they no longer teach this but do state it's a "matter of conscience" or whatever, basically saying that it's OK for family members to at least consider not attending on those grounds.

Or to use another example, how about a heterosexual wedding between a teacher and someone who was previously married and divorced? Even if the teacher has never been married, such a marriage is just as invalid as a same-sex one.

Once again, that's their decision to make, not yours.  If you don't like what the Catholic Church does, don't give them your tithes, and buy your Girl Scout Cookies from a troop they don't sponsor.

A priest here was arrested for soliciting a prostitute, so it's not just pedophilia. 

Firings generally aren't consensual.  It's hard for me to believe you're not intentionally misconstruing my argument here.

You're more of a pretentious f**k than a moderate hero.

Who pissed in your cereal this morning?  There is nothing pretentious about my argument.  I don't like the idea of government deciding what is a reasonable preference when hiring and firing someone, or other consensual private conduct.  Imagine that we had popular referendums on private conduct.  Imagine 51% of the populace made a habit of going "well, your moral beliefs on this are stupid, so you have to employ people [or whatever] based on mine."  Besides the fact that it involves another person (by that person's consent), how is employment different than any other private conduct?  There are distinctions, yes, but is the difference between employment and, say, social interaction, so absolutely clear that you're comfortable forcing people's hand in one situation, but not another?

I would think, being a vegan, you'd have heard "omg pretentious" whining so much about your own beliefs, that you'd think twice before being an abrasive dick about other people's.  Evidently not.

No I wouldn't, any religious institution needs to be allowed to fire anyone they want for religious reasons. 

I was referring to the KKK in there un-"glory" years (in terms of members) , when there was no such thing as a special group status for deviants.


you mean Catholics and Jews who follow the tenants of Catholicism and Judaism.

and voting for a jew doesn't prove your not an antisemite.
Leon Blum was the prime minister of France and a few years later most of France proved they still were a bunch of anti semites.