Tuesday, May 25, 2010

U.S. Catholic Bishops Embrace Workplace Discrimination

One has to wonder why anyone would listen to the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference when it's likely that a majority of its members ought to be criminally prosecuted as accessories to the sexual abuse of minors. But the pompous hypocrites of the Bishops Conference has nonetheless have launched themselves into the debate over the Employment Non-Discrimination Act ("ENDA"), proving that some blow hards have literally no shame. Rather than focus much needed efforts on cleaning their own filthy house, the Bishops seek to keep LGBT citizens second class Americans subject to firing based on the religious bigotry of their employers. With these men, covering up the sexual abuse of children and youths is just fine, by protecting gays from being fired from the jobs is not. Obviously, the hypocrisy of it all makes me sick. Here are some highlights from Change.org:
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Survey after survey shows that most Americans don't want to see LGBT people fired from their jobs, solely on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity. We don't want to see hotel workers fired because they're gay . . .
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Indeed, polling on this shows overwhelming majorities of Americans believe that it's wrong to fire employees based on their sexual orientation or gender identity (upwards of at least 89 percent agree with that). So who believes that it is OK to fire LGBT employees?
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The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, that's who. They're out with a letter today, sent to Congress, urging legislators to vote down the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA). And as is the case with almost any piece of LGBT-related legislation, from hate crimes to immigration equality to health care, they're citing the fear that passage of ENDA will eventually lead to America becoming a cornucopia of same-sex marriage. The leap of logic needed to say that preventing workplace discrimination will lead to the enactment of same-sex marriage is mammoth in size.
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[W]hat's particularly sad about the U.S. Bishops' letter to Congress is that it's rife with doublespeak about discrimination. . . . Out of one side of their mouths, the Bishops are saying "Catholic teaching states that all people are created in the image and likeness of God and thus possess an innate human dignity that must be acknowledged and respected." Yet outside the other end of their mouths, the Bishops are saying that LGBT shouldn't be protected against unjust workplace firings because it might lead to same-sex marriage.
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Right now, LGBT people can be fired in 29 states solely because of their sexual orientation. Worse yet, in 38 states employees can be fired on the basis of their gender identity. But for the U.S. Bishops, the fact that LGBT people can be given pink slips at a moment's notice without any recourse is the price that society has to pay in order to keep same-sex couples from polluting the world.
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[I]f you want to push your legislator(s) to get behind ENDA, and help end workplace discrimination once and for all, you can do so by signing this petition here. Don't let a group of Bishops out of touch with mainstream opinion on the subject of workplace discrimination have the last word.

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