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Re: There is a difference in the degree of the transgressions and the public nature of them as well. MalkierKnight Send a noteboard - 09/09/2010 06:43:23 AM
You see, I don't feel you should be able to draw a contract up like that at all. In my interpretation of the law (however lacking it may be) it is discriminatory to exclude someone's employment opportunity based on sexual preference.
And this is not a case of exclusion from employment based on sexual preference. They hired a lesbian (and the only plausible excuse for not knowing that woman was a lesbian would have been having caught her in flagrante with a man). They kept her on while she was engaged in a homsexual relationship, because it was private. It was when she publically and officially defied a church position that she was fired. The Chuch has explicit teachings on this sort of thing regarding association with public sinners, and is only practicing what she preaches here.

Imagine if her contract stipulated that she couldn't marry an african-american? I can only begin to fathom the backlash, regardless of the contractual literature.
Why would they have a contract like that, and what would be wrong with it? What is wrong with ANY employer setting the conditions under which a person may be employeed? It's not like this is the only teaching job in the universe or anything, but when someone like Ben Roethlisberger has no choice about where he can play football for a living, no one has a problem with the NFL forcing their players to accept the league's right to interfere with their players' private lives and punish a player (and by extension his team and their fans) for what that player gets up to in his private life. No one has a problem with Rob Schneider posting an ad stating that he will never employ Mel Gibson in his movies because of Gibson's private opinions (no matter how ridiculous the reality of such a stunt). It should be noted that Gibson's children were actually denied admission to one Catholic school on the basis of their father's work before any of the recent scandals. So which side do you knee-jerk PC'er come down on for that? Because that is all that is really at work here - you aren't upset about the violation of a principle, but that it's your ox that's being gored.

I'll admit that there is some gray area regarding how far religious institutions can go with their powers as a private entity. Should we look on them as a different type of private entity as, say, a McDonalds or Google? Or are they really no different?
They should not be different in the least. McDonalds should have an equal right to fire people for similar reasons. However, the reason for the exception to the immoral and unjust laws preventing such "discrimination" has to do with organizations having the right to protect their purposes. Would the NAACP (since you like that ridiculous comparison of racial preference to morality) not have the right to fire an employee who joined or was discovered to be a member of the KKK?

It also seems like there's a veiled feeling of homophobia here. It wouldn't surprise me if there were other teachers who contradicted church doctrine and were allowed to stay on board. Of course, that's just my speculation,
I speculate that you discriminate against people for fun. Don't take it amiss, that's just speculation that when no one is looking, you are hypocritical, too.

but you don't hear very often churches or religious schools kicking people out because they got divorced without an annulment or use contraceptives.
Because most employees of Catholic schools are smart enough to refrain from bragging about their sexual practices on school grounds. As for the former, yes, that has happened too, and a bunch of people pissed and moaned about it on the CMB on this site or its predecessor. So much for your hypocrisy theory. Generally, people also tend to not make a big deal about the circumstances of the ending of their previous marriage when they get remarried. For the most part, Catholic practice is "judge not lest ye be judged," by which the Church teaches it is meant that you do not assume the worst about a situation or the truth of someone's moral state when it is possible you could be wrong. You give them the benefit of the doubt to the greatest extent possible, so you don't go prying into the technicalities of their marital or reproductive failures.

So why then this grave emphasis on marriage?


When you give people the benefit of the doubt it goes like this:
Catholic employee with a spouse & few or no kids: "I am sure they are either less than optimally fertile or else using the rhythmn method."
Employee married for a second time: "I am sure the previous spouse is deceased."
Said employee's prior spouse is known to be alive: "I am sure they made a mistake in attempting a marriage, but had the invalidity of their relationship certified by the Church."
Mannish female teacher teaching sports: "I am sure she is making the best of an unfortunate physical draw."
Said female teacher never dates: "I am sure God has called her to a single vocation."
Said female teacher has a close female friend she mentions a lot and seems to spend most of her free time with: "It's nice that she has such good friends to comfort her in her spinsterhood."
Said teacher refers to friend as 'my girlfriend': "I am sure she means in the normal everyday sense of a female friend."
Said teacher moves in with her 'girlfriend': "It makes sense to share living expenses, what with her typically low Catholic teachers' salary."
At the point where she formally goes through a wedding ceremony and starts claiming she is married to a woman, it becomes absolutely impossible to keep assuming the best.

The importance with which people of various Christian denominations stress heterosexuality is shocking to me considering Christ himself never once mentioned homosexuals in all the writings we have on him.
We have one very short book, you imbecile. If you don't know that much, you have no business commenting on Christianity. Jesus never explicitly condemned censorship, slavery or racism either. Are you cool with those? He DID preach a parable where an employer treats his employees unequally and when reproached replies "Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money?" (Matthew 20:15, New International Version).

Finally, all other things aside, contraception or divorce and remarriage are not nearly as grave a sin as public practice of homosexuality, which is one of the four "sins crying out heaven for vengeance."


My my, I'm away from the computer for a few days and look what has found it's way to my thread.

An illiterate moron.

Before I directly address some of your decent points, let me first go over the stupid ones you made.

1) I never, in my entire post, brought up morality. So don't put words in my mouth. I hope you're bright enough to realize that what is legal and what is moral are not necessarily the same thing. I'd be more than glad to discuss the morality of the issue with you another time, but the topic of this thread was legality.

My point was that it shouldn't be legal for private institutions to make personnel decisions based on something not directly related to their work performance. Perhaps my use of the word "ought" misled you to think there was a moral emphasis in what I said. That would be my fault.

2) Comparing Ben Roethelesburger to this woman is absurd. Just because two things are similar in the vaguest of ways, doesn't mean you can draw a comparison. The circumstances of each issue are very different.

If you can't understand that, you're more of an idiot than your post lets on. However, I'd be glad to exhaustively explain how the NFL's personal conduct policy is different from marrying a homosexual, if you insist.

3) Discrimination isn't legal. In fact, it's explicitly illegal. I'm sorry that you really don't like the civil rights act, but it is a law. And it was voted there by elected representatives. That's how democracy works. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean you can sit her and claim that it's not the law. Maybe you don't like that law, but don't sit her and act like it's ok to fire someone based on race.

Listing Rob Schneider as a source is also so mind-blowingly stupid I'm almost unable to explain all the ways you are a complete and utter dumbass.


You see, the law exists because it has to. There's no moral justification for it. It's there because we need it. Because people need it. Which is why Democracy is the most just form of government. Because the society that needs order and protection from too much freedom has a say in how the government goes about protecting and keeping the order.

As people grow culturally and intellectually, they can afford more and more freedoms.

However, when society starts to abuse those freedoms, the government steps in and creates more laws.

In a perfect world, we wouldn't need things like the civil rights act.

Unfortunately, idiot racists abuse their freedom of privacy, by hurting other citizens.

Unfortunately, catholics abuse their power as a private institution by refusing to hire/employ someone who sins in but ONE way among THOUSANDS.


And I'm well aware that the Bible is the book you're referring to. However, if you're a Catholic, as you seem to suggest, there's a whole bunch of church doctrine you have to listen to as well. In case you didn't know, that's where most of the anti-gay stuff comes from (at least in the Catholic Church). (Btw, the bible is a collection of writings from many different authors, I was referring to those select writings about Jesus, i.e. the gospel).

Since you're such a penitent man, go read the bible sometime and gloss over the pages about jesus christ. Tell me how many times he mentions homosexuality.

You must unlearn what you have learned.
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Gay Marriage and Religious Institutions - 04/09/2010 11:36:14 PM 1368 Views
Religion 100% aside, it's"okay" because she breached her contract - 05/09/2010 12:18:36 AM 956 Views
Well, my tripes with it are a little in line with that - 05/09/2010 01:26:56 AM 971 Views
Re: Well, my tripes with it are a little in line with that - 05/09/2010 01:41:34 AM 914 Views
goodness knows that the military sign their rights away ALL THE TIME - 05/09/2010 02:44:58 AM 774 Views
While I understand that view - 05/09/2010 04:05:29 AM 922 Views
There is a difference in the degree of the transgressions and the public nature of them as well. - 05/09/2010 02:30:06 AM 873 Views
agreed. There may be some hypocrisy in the church employment practices... - 05/09/2010 02:49:44 AM 832 Views
That's the crux of it. - 07/09/2010 11:24:44 AM 972 Views
Re: There is a difference in the degree of the transgressions and the public nature of them as well. - 09/09/2010 06:43:23 AM 1151 Views
I could not believe this post was serious. - 10/09/2010 02:04:10 AM 960 Views
Good god... - 10/09/2010 10:52:03 AM 933 Views
To recieve federal funds you can't discriminate - 05/09/2010 04:02:13 AM 973 Views
She chose to work for a Catholic institution. - 05/09/2010 05:54:23 PM 778 Views
what a stupid thing to say - 05/09/2010 07:38:16 PM 918 Views
Um... no? One can be excommunicated for any number of things. *NM* - 05/09/2010 08:22:29 PM 314 Views
yeah back in the time when there was no electricity *NM* - 05/09/2010 08:25:17 PM 356 Views
...um, no. I'm not sure where you're getting that from, but it's completely wrong. - 06/09/2010 01:06:49 AM 820 Views
You can't be excommunicated for being gay - 06/09/2010 02:51:21 AM 903 Views
No one here said you could. - 06/09/2010 03:00:07 AM 834 Views
I am not disagreeing with that, excommunications do happen - 06/09/2010 03:07:57 AM 917 Views
Wow! What an underwhelming argument. - 06/09/2010 04:24:32 AM 881 Views
Actually, the Pope has the right to say "sorry, you're not a Catholic anymore". - 05/09/2010 08:43:34 PM 1025 Views
See above post - 06/09/2010 02:52:25 AM 761 Views
What? - 06/09/2010 02:56:59 AM 772 Views
Nope - 06/09/2010 03:03:48 AM 802 Views
Inaction, like, for example, not saving lives where you could have is also grounds for expulsion. - 06/09/2010 06:35:31 PM 682 Views
Hmm, but I think that's a different type of inaction than the kind he's discussing - 06/09/2010 08:02:50 PM 999 Views
I never infered that that was the case. - 06/09/2010 08:24:30 PM 698 Views
mmm, but your example isn't inaction ALONE - 06/09/2010 08:46:56 PM 801 Views
Hmm interesting question. - 06/09/2010 10:35:19 PM 885 Views
is excommunication about "use" though? - 06/09/2010 10:36:55 PM 919 Views
I don't know. - 07/09/2010 05:47:42 AM 761 Views
yah, I'd agree with that - 07/09/2010 11:59:01 AM 919 Views
Well thank god you aren't the pope - 07/09/2010 03:29:00 AM 883 Views
I would say the same for you. - 07/09/2010 05:50:55 AM 827 Views
Dismas is a Saint? - 07/09/2010 12:08:45 PM 902 Views
It's pretty hard to argue with that one. *NM* - 08/09/2010 04:18:41 AM 293 Views
Yeah, was just surprised they'd made it official is all. - 08/09/2010 04:36:28 AM 868 Views
You are purposefully trying to split hairs - 07/09/2010 03:15:08 AM 806 Views
Calling me an idiot... - 07/09/2010 05:52:39 AM 818 Views
My turn to split hairs: - 07/09/2010 12:10:33 PM 810 Views
does excommunication mean you are no longer Catholic? - 06/09/2010 08:52:58 PM 697 Views
i'm pretty sure we have this conversation on a weekly basis. *NM* - 06/09/2010 09:05:33 PM 333 Views
Yeah. - 06/09/2010 10:34:10 PM 678 Views
is being Catholic a belief system or a club? - 06/09/2010 11:03:00 PM 788 Views
Depends on who you ask - 07/09/2010 03:12:23 AM 937 Views
It's both. - 07/09/2010 05:54:13 AM 884 Views
I'm unsure about that. It doesn't invalidate baptism. - 07/09/2010 08:23:33 AM 761 Views
I thought conformation is what made you a member of the church *NM* - 07/09/2010 06:42:36 PM 303 Views
You're correct. - 08/09/2010 02:33:45 AM 796 Views
Hey I haven't brought up the last two times - 07/09/2010 03:30:18 AM 781 Views
My god people that cheat or divorce shouldn't be Catholic - 06/09/2010 02:26:23 AM 697 Views
I'm inclined to agree. - 07/09/2010 11:31:59 AM 760 Views
Re: I'm inclined to agree. - 10/09/2010 02:36:05 AM 882 Views

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