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Showing posts with label gay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gay. Show all posts
Catholics Persecuted over Gay Adoption in Illinois? Not Even Close.
Once again, the Roman Catholic Church is giving out misinformation instead of facing the truth.
Catholic Charities, an Illinois adoption agency, had to close its doors because it lost funding from the state. According to attorney Peter Breen, the state is breaking the plain language of the law and violating the will of the citizens:
But this is nothing more than a smokescreen to hide the real truth. They lost on Constitutional principles that had nothing to do with the Illinois Civil Union Act.
The simple fact is that the Catholic Charities can continue to provide adoption services – if they can raise funds privately. They just can't have the taxpayers' money to do it. As Waymon Hudson at Redeye put it:
The United States Constitution cuts both ways: it protects our rights to worship or not as we please, but it also says churches can't discriminate using public funds. The Catholic Church has every right to discriminate, however uncaring or cruel it might be. But they can't spend our tax dollars to do it.
So why the smokescreen? Why can't the Catholics just admit that they lost their legal fight fair and square? Because they want to look persecuted. It's the good ol' Underdog Meme – the idea that somehow Catholics and other Christians, who make up roughly 80% of America's population, are a persecuted minority whose rights are being trampled. It's laughable on the face of it. But sadly, people always root for the underdog, so the meme propagates.
Catholic Charities, an Illinois adoption agency, had to close its doors because it lost funding from the state. According to attorney Peter Breen, the state is breaking the plain language of the law and violating the will of the citizens:
"The Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act only passed after specific assurances that the law would not impact the work of religious social service agencies. Specific protections for these agencies were written into the law, but unfortunately, Illinois officials refused to abide by those protections. This stands as a stark lesson to the rest of the nation that legislators promising 'religious protection' in same sex marriage and civil union laws may not be able to deliver on those promises."Gosh, that sounds awful, doesn't it?
But this is nothing more than a smokescreen to hide the real truth. They lost on Constitutional principles that had nothing to do with the Illinois Civil Union Act.
The simple fact is that the Catholic Charities can continue to provide adoption services – if they can raise funds privately. They just can't have the taxpayers' money to do it. As Waymon Hudson at Redeye put it:
"At the heart of the issue is the over $30 million dollars that Catholic Charities receives from the state of Illinois for foster care and adoption services. This effectively moves them from a private faith-based organization, which does have built-in religious exemptions as the name of the civil unions law implies, to an administrator of state-funded public services. The are essentially acting as an agent of the state."The Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act, which they try to claim is being violated, only says that they don't have to perform marriages or adoptions for same-sex couples (or for anyone else they don't like). Nobody is going to force a Catholic priest to stand in his own church and marry two men or two women.
The United States Constitution cuts both ways: it protects our rights to worship or not as we please, but it also says churches can't discriminate using public funds. The Catholic Church has every right to discriminate, however uncaring or cruel it might be. But they can't spend our tax dollars to do it.
So why the smokescreen? Why can't the Catholics just admit that they lost their legal fight fair and square? Because they want to look persecuted. It's the good ol' Underdog Meme – the idea that somehow Catholics and other Christians, who make up roughly 80% of America's population, are a persecuted minority whose rights are being trampled. It's laughable on the face of it. But sadly, people always root for the underdog, so the meme propagates.
Labels:
adoption,
catholic,
christian,
constitution,
gay,
homosexual,
illinois,
lgbt,
separation
Should Gay-Bashing Teacher Lose Job?
Do teachers have to give up their First-Amendment right to free speech when they take their first job? In a strange twist on free speech, the ACLU is defending an ultra-conservative evangelical right-wing Christian's right to gay-bashing hate speech. The case of high-school teacher Viki Knox, the self-described "Jesus freak," reminds us that free speech is a complex issue.
Ms. Knox's school posted a display on a bulletin board recognizing LGBT history month. Ms. Knox was offended and not afraid to say so ... on Facebook. She wrote (emphasis in original):
Ed Barocas, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, says Ms. Knox shouldn't be fired: "The ACLU believes that the response to offensive speech is not the restriction of speech, but more speech." In other words, the ACLU says Ms. Knox's hate speech should not disqualify her from teaching.
I rarely disagree with the ACLU, but in this case I do. I can't see how Ms. Knox can possibly treat her students fairly given her clear bias against gays and lesbian teens.
One of the most important rights we have as Americans is the freedom to say what we want, without fear of persecution, imprisonment or death (all of which were real fears before the American revolution, and are still fears in many parts of the world). And we also know that our morals, with rare exceptions, are none of our employer's business. As long as we're at work, we do our employer's bidding and act according to our employer's rules. And when we go home, we can be bigots and jerks, and it's none of our employer's concern.
But there are exceptions to this rule. Teachers, welfare workers, judges, law-enforcement officials and politicians have to understand that there is no brick wall between their public and private lives. It's more like a gauze curtain. Even the President of Boeing learned this the hard way.
"But," you might argue, "Ms. Knox is really fair in the classroom. She treats all the students equally. You'd never know from her classroom behavior that she's anti-gay. Let her keep teaching!"
Baloney. Her Facebook comments are sure to infiltrate her classroom. I'd bet a fair sum of money that news of her anti-gay diatribe spread like wildfire through the student body. Her life is only private inside the walls of her own home.
If I were the parent of one of Viki Knox's students, I'd exercise my own right to free speech and talk to my kids and the community about LGBT issues and Ms. Knox's religion-inspired hate speech. It would be an opportunity to explain that once a kid graduates from high school, it's the real world, filled with real people ... and they'll be on their own to face bigots like Ms. Knox.
Ms. Knox has a right to be an anti-gay bigot and to say so, or she has a right to be a teacher. But not both. She can't expect to hurl insults at the entire gay/lesbian community and then teach in a classroom that includes gays and lesbians.
Ms. Knox's school posted a display on a bulletin board recognizing LGBT history month. Ms. Knox was offended and not afraid to say so ... on Facebook. She wrote (emphasis in original):
"Homosexuality is a perverted spirit ... Why parade your unnatural immoral behaviors before the rest of us? AND YOU ARE WRONG! I/WE DO NOT HAVE TO ACCEPT ANYTHING, ANYONE. ANY BEHAVIOR OR ANY CHOICES! I DO NOT HAVE TO TOLERATE ANYTHING OTHERS WISH TO DO."I'm sure all of my readers will agree that Ms. Knox's comments are despicable, hateful, and should be an embarrassment to all civilized Americans. But ... what about free speech? Is Ms. Knox's hateful gay-bashing grounds for firing her? Don't teachers have a right to free speech?
Ed Barocas, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, says Ms. Knox shouldn't be fired: "The ACLU believes that the response to offensive speech is not the restriction of speech, but more speech." In other words, the ACLU says Ms. Knox's hate speech should not disqualify her from teaching.
I rarely disagree with the ACLU, but in this case I do. I can't see how Ms. Knox can possibly treat her students fairly given her clear bias against gays and lesbian teens.
One of the most important rights we have as Americans is the freedom to say what we want, without fear of persecution, imprisonment or death (all of which were real fears before the American revolution, and are still fears in many parts of the world). And we also know that our morals, with rare exceptions, are none of our employer's business. As long as we're at work, we do our employer's bidding and act according to our employer's rules. And when we go home, we can be bigots and jerks, and it's none of our employer's concern.
But there are exceptions to this rule. Teachers, welfare workers, judges, law-enforcement officials and politicians have to understand that there is no brick wall between their public and private lives. It's more like a gauze curtain. Even the President of Boeing learned this the hard way.
"But," you might argue, "Ms. Knox is really fair in the classroom. She treats all the students equally. You'd never know from her classroom behavior that she's anti-gay. Let her keep teaching!"
Baloney. Her Facebook comments are sure to infiltrate her classroom. I'd bet a fair sum of money that news of her anti-gay diatribe spread like wildfire through the student body. Her life is only private inside the walls of her own home.
If I were the parent of one of Viki Knox's students, I'd exercise my own right to free speech and talk to my kids and the community about LGBT issues and Ms. Knox's religion-inspired hate speech. It would be an opportunity to explain that once a kid graduates from high school, it's the real world, filled with real people ... and they'll be on their own to face bigots like Ms. Knox.
Ms. Knox has a right to be an anti-gay bigot and to say so, or she has a right to be a teacher. But not both. She can't expect to hurl insults at the entire gay/lesbian community and then teach in a classroom that includes gays and lesbians.
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