Trump DOJ Backs Indianapolis Archdiocese in Firing of Gay Employees

Modern Day Pharisee - Archbishop of Indianapolis.

If one wants a case study in hypocrisy, look no farther than the Archdiocese of Indianapolis and the Trump Justice Department.  In the case of the archdiocese, it wants the right to fire a gay high school faculty who has no direct contract with the archdiocese to protect its "religious liberty" and easily influenced students yet - like virtually all Catholic dioceses around the globe - has covered up sexual abuse of children and youths and has fought tooth and claw to avoid payment of reasonable compensation to the victims of clerical sexual abuse. Then there is the Trump DOJ which has sought to protect an occupant of the White House who is devoid of any shred of morality and decency, much less living a life reflective of the pillars of Catholic dogma who is pretending to back the "religious freedom" of a diocese guilty of sexual abuse of children and minors. The true agenda of both institutions: (i) to pander to the most reactionary elements of their respective bases, and (ii) distract from the ugliness of their science denying, homophobic animus towards LGBT individuals. A piece linked via The Advocate looks at the situation.  Here are excerpts:

The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday issued a Statement of Interest in support of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis in its ongoing dispute with a former Catholic school teacher who alleges he was wrongfully terminated because he was in a same-sex marriage.

Joshua Payne-Elliott is currently suing the archdiocese, alleging it illegally interfered with his contractual and employment relationship with Cathedral High School, causing Cathedral to terminate him. 

In it's statement, the DOJ said that the First Amendment protects the right of the  Archdiocese to interpret and apply Catholic doctrine. 

It's not clear what the DOJ's statement means for Payne-Elliott's suit, if anything. But his lawyer, Kathleen DeLaney, said it was "highly unusual" for the Justice Department to insert itself into a local employment issue.

What I take away from this is that the Trump administration is politicizing a legal dispute about an Indiana business tort." DeLaney said.

Steve Sanders, a constitutional law expert, said it's not that uncommon for presidential administrations of both parties to file statements in “important civil rights cases.”

"I fear that this statement from the Trump administration's Justice Department appears to be more calculated to win favor with the president's base of religious conservatives than it does to seriously assist the court's adjudication of this case,” Sanders said. . . . . He added: “The Archdiocese may or may not prevail in the end, but the issue is not as one-sided, and the outcome is not nearly as clear, as the Justice Department statement portrays them to be." 

DeLaney said the case isn't about religious liberty, but instead centers on an employment dispute. 

"Josh Payne-Elliot was employed by Cathedral High School," she said. "Cathedral High School fired my client because the archdiocese told them to and threatened to take various actions against Cathedral if they refused to fire my client.

"That is textbook intentional interference in an employment relationship. He was not employed by the archdiocese but the archdiocese had him fired."

When Payne-Elliott filed his suit, he said in a news release that he hoped the case would "put a stop to the targeting of LGBTQ employees and their families."

He is one of the three gay, married Catholic school employees fired in the last year at the direction of the archdiocese, who said they were in violation of church doctrine by being in same-sex marriages.

The employees worked at multiple schools under the purview of the Church. Aside from Payne-Elliott, two guidance counselors were fired from Roncalli High School earlier this year.

In addition, Payne-Elliott's husband, Layton Payne-Elliott, is a teacher at Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School. The archdiocese stripped Brebeuf of its Catholic identity after it refused to fire Layton Payne-Elliott. The Vatican recently suspended that ruling, pending an appeal from the school. 

The bottom line is you have a diocese that has covered up sexual abuse teamed up with the Justice Department under an occupant of the White House who is the antithesis of what Christian values should be.  It'a match made in Heaven, or perhaps more appropriately, in Hell.

Massachusetts Court: Catholic School Wrongly Fired Gay Employee

Anti-gay school

Increasingly, we are seeing religious affiliated schools and colleges seek special rights when it comes to discriminating against gays and otherwise breaking non-discrimination laws.  The godly folk believe that they should have the right to refuse to employ gays - even while disgustingly enjoying tax-exempt status and, thus, indirect financial benefits from those they discriminate against - on the justification of their hate and fear based religious beliefs (I believe that no religious institution should not be tax exempt unless engaged in solely charitable works which do not include disseminating religious beliefs and bigotry). These beliefs, of course, are typically selectively aimed at LGBT individuals.  A Massachusetts court has called this bigotry out for the bull shit that it is and has ruled against a Catholic School that fired a gay worker once it discovered he was married to a man.   Metro Weekly looks at this first of its kind ruling.  Here are highlights:

A Massachusetts superior court judge on Wednesday ruled in a first-of-its-kind decision that a Catholic all-girls school in Milton, Mass., illegally discriminated against a gay cafeteria worker when school officials fired him after learning he was married to another man.

Matthew Barrett, of Dorchester, had argued that Fontbonne Academy had engaged in sex discrimination when it rescinded its job offer after discovering details about his personal life. Barrett had previously been offered and accepted the position of food services director at the school, a position that did not put him in the classroom or leave him with the ability to influence school curriculum. But Fontbonne insisted it had a right to fire Barrett, citing the Catholic Church’s opposition to homosexuality and same-sex marriage, as well as an exemption within Massachusetts’ LGBT nondiscrimination law for religiously-affiliated institutions. 

But Norfolk Superior Court Judge Douglas Wilkins rejected that argument, ruling that the exemption within the nondiscrimination law does not apply, because Fontbonne accepts non-Catholic students and employees, regardless of their faith. According to Wilkins, the religious exemption only applies to organizations that limit membership or admission to members of a certain religion.

Additionally, Wilkins ruled that the First Amendment’s protections for religious expression did not apply to the case, as hiring a food service worker who happened to be married to a same-sex spouse would not interfere with Fontbonne’s ability to express its opposition to same-sex marriages.

“Religiously-affiliated organizations do not get a free pass to discriminate against gay and lesbian people,” Bennett Klein, a senior attorney with Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), which is representing Barrett, said in a statement. “When Fontbonne fired Matt from a job that has nothing to do with religion, and simply because he is married, they came down on the wrong side of the law.”

If the school decides not to appeal, the two sides must determine whether there will be a trial to determine the amount in damages that Fontbonne would owe to Barrett, who has since taken a job with the Milton public school system. 

“I’m ecstatic,” Barrett said in a statement. “What happened to me was wrong, and I truly hope it doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

Kudos to Judge Wilkins!!   As regular readers know, I view religion as one of the pervasive forces of evil in the world today be it in the form of Islamic extremism or the hate and bigotry which is the bedrock of conservative Christianity.  The world would simply be a better place if religion suddenly disappeared from the face of the planet.

Most Americans Oppose LGBT Employment Discrimination by Churches

The results of a new survey contain bad news for Christofascists who believe that they should be above non-discrimination laws: a majority of Americans oppose anti-LGBT employment discrimination even by churches and only 30% of respondents believe privately held business corporations citing "religious beliefs" should be able to discriminate against gays.  Thus, while shrieks of "religious freedom" and/or "persecution of Christians" may play well in Christofascist and professional right wing Christian circles - and, of course, among political whores in the Republican Party - most Americans are not impressed.  The survey also found support for a federal ENDA law.  A post at The New Civil Rights Movement looks at the survey findings:

Fifty-five percent of Americans believe no employer, not even a church, should be allowed to discriminate in the employment of LGBT people if a federal law, like ENDA, were passed. A new Harris poll which surveyed over 2500 people found that just 35 percent of Americans think religious institutions, like churches, should be allowed to discriminate on religious grounds. Even less, just three in ten Americans, think privately-held businesses should be allowed to discriminate. 

And about one in five people think publicly held businesses (21 percent) or small businesses (19 percent) should be exempt if they cite religious beliefs.

"Americans simply don't believe that employer exemptions are justified when it comes to basic workplace safeguards for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Americans," The Harris Poll reports.

The survey also showed continued support for federal policies that end job discrimination for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals, as well as transgender employees. Two-thirds (65%) of American adults agree that federal law should be expanded to include protection from job discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Also, when it comes to protections for transgender employees, more than half (54%) of all adults strongly agree that transgender workers should be treated equally and fairly as all other workers. 

 Hopefully, more and more Americans are coming to see far right Christians for the mean, self-centered, hypocrites that they are in fact. 

Philadelphia Anti-Gay Attack Suspects Arrested

On September 11, 2014, a gay couple was severely beaten in Philadelphia by a band of white 20 somethings after the couple was taunted by anti-gay slurs.  Now, three of the attackers have been arrested.  One is the daughter of Chalfont, Pennsylvania Police Chief Karl Knott, which makes one wonder what gays must face in Chalfont from police.  The take away is that it is still dangerous to be gay in America even in progressive cities like Philadelphia. Too many of us forget the danger that lurks out on the streets.   The New Civil Rights Movement reports on the arrests:

The three, left to right, are Kevin Harrigan, 26, Kathryn Knott, 24, and Philip Williams, also 24. They are all charged with aggravated assault, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person (REAP), and criminal conspiracy in the September 11, anti-gay hate attack that left a same-sex couple in the hospital.

At least one of them is accused of of having called the two gay men "dirty faggots," and asking one of the victims if the other victim was his "fucking boyfriend" before allegedly assaulting them.  

It is perhaps telling that the police chief's daughter, Kathryn Knott has a history evidenced by her twitter account of embracing the usual Christofascist/Tea Party agenda:

In addition to the homophobic tweets, there appears to be evidence of excessive drinking, a belief she is owed things, including money, anti-immigrant beliefs, and disturbing claims of privilege for being the daughter of a police chief.

Here's how police described the incident that gave rise to the arrests:

On September 11, 2014, at 10:45 pm, the complainant, a 28 year-old male, along with a friend, a 27 year-old male, were on the 1600 block of Chancellor Street when they were approached by a group of unknown white males and females. As the group approached the complainants they made disparaging remarks about their sexual orientation. The group then attacked the complainants holding them while other members of the group punched them in the face, head and chest. During the assault one of the complainants dropped his bag containing his cell phone, wallet and credit cards. When police approached one of the suspects picked the bag up from the ground. The group then fled and were last seen north on 16th Street towards Walnut Street. Both complainants were transported to Hahnemann Hospital for multiple injuries. One complainant was treated for fractures and deep lacerations to his face requiring surgery and his jaw wired shut.

Suspect Description: A group of approximately 10-12 white male and females all in their early 20′s “clean cut” and well dressed. One suspect was described as having a husky build, brown hair, wearing a brown shirt and shorts.

One member of the group is believed to have been Fran McGlinn, a former student and assistant basketball coach for Archbishop Wood Catholic High School. It is suggested that a number of the attackers were former students at Archbishop Wood Catholic High School.  Thankfully, McGlinn has been fired from his assistant coach position.

HRC Requests A Meeting with Pope

While Pope Francis has made statements that some perhaps self-delusional Catholics have perceived as a softening of the Catholic Church's anti-gay jihad and one Catholic bishop in Brazil has come out in support of civil unions for same sex couples (but not marriage), here in America the Catholic Church seems to have launched a new offensive against gays in the form of teachers contracts and opposition to any behavior that might be conceived to be "supportive of the homosexual lifestyle” which can be grounds for dismissal. As I have argued before, Pope Francis may be far better at PR than his Nazi Pope predecessor, but truth be told, to date Francis has not altered any official Catholic Church doctrine towards gays.  Officially, we are still "inherently disordered" and "motivated toward evil."  In perhaps a hope of pushing Pope Francis to stop the pretenses, Human Rights Campaign ("HRC") has asked for a meeting with Pope Francis.  Here are highlights from HRC's website:

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization, today delivered a letter to the Vatican on behalf of 9 teachers who have lost their jobs at Catholics Schools for either being LGBT, or supporting an LGBT family member.   

 Last month, the Archdiocese of Cincinnati took anti-LGBT to a new level, calling not only for the firing of gay and lesbian school employees, but also citing support of the “homosexual lifestyle” as grounds for dismissal. 

Since then, Molly Shumate, who has been a devoted first grade teacher in Cincinnati for 14 years, was forced to resign after being asked to choose between her career as an educator and supporting her own gay son. These draconian laws are designed to force LGBT people back into the closet and silence straight allies.

They have sparked a frightening trend that is being duplicated in Cleveland, Oakland, Hawaii and most recently in Macon, Georgia where just last week Flint Dollar was fired from his position as Band Director at Mount De Sale’s Academy.  Dollar says that he was fired from the Catholic school by President David Held, who cited Dollar’s pending marriage to his male partner of six years as the reason for termination. Mount de Sales students and parents are reportedly planning a sit-in protesting the decision.

The letter signed by the teachers and delivered to the Nuncio, or diplomatic representative of the Holy See, reads in part:

Today, a majority of Roman Catholics in the pews and our communities support LGBT equality, as have the millions of fair-minded people who have shown support with their LGBT friends and families.

"We take hope from your messages of acceptance and see in your pastoral leadership the possibility for the Church to correct these hurtful injustices. We ask for a Papal audience with our families, so that you may hear our personal stories firsthand and see the impact the Church’s actions have had on us all."

Dozens of LGBT teachers committed to educating our youth have already lost their jobs in schools across the country. HRC calls on the Vatican to receive and carefully consider this letter to ensure that no more young people are deprived of  a good education and no more teachers are denied employment because of who they are or who they love.

Personally, I will not be holding my breath hoping that Francis will do something to signal real change.  Indeed, I voted with my feet over 14 years ago and left the Roman Catholic Church.  Between the sex abuse scandal and the Church's treatment of Gays, I'd feel dirty if I were still a Catholic.

The Catholic Church - Nothing Has Really Changed Under Pope Francis

As noted a number of times on this blog, Catholics who have desperately wanted to see Pope Francis as ushering in a kinder, gentler Roman Catholic Church have been serious deluding themselves.  All that has changed is that Pope Francis is much better at the PR game than his horrible Nazi Pope predecessor.   But better PR skills do not equate with substantive change.  For those who need proof that Francis is just more of the same old nasty hypocrisy, one need only look at the "morality clauses" being inserted into contracts for teachers at Catholic schools across America or the ongoing modern day Inquisition being waged against American nuns.  Francis talks a good talk, but actions are far more telling.  The truth is that hypocrisy and the bizarre obsession of bitter old men about all things sexual is what the Church is really all about.  Oh, and let's not forget the Vatican orchestrated cover up of the sexual abuse of children - that other hallmark of the Vatican's leadership.   On the issue of the anti-gay jihad at Catholic schools, a column in the New York Times focuses in on the hypocrisy.  Here are excerpts:

“WOULD Pope Francis Sign the New Catholic Teacher Contract?” That’s the question spelled out on a dozen billboards that have gone up around Cincinnati over the last week or so.

And it’s an excellent one, because it flags the tension between what’s been said in Rome and what’s happening in Ohio, between a message of greater tolerance and the practice of the same old intolerance, between the direction in which the Catholic church needs to move and the matters of sexual morality on which it keeps getting stuck.

Those matters take center stage in an expanded employment contract that the Archdiocese of Cincinnati is forcing on more than 2,000 teachers, some of whom are refusing to sign it. In what the document does and doesn’t spell out, it sends the tired message that virtue resides in whom you share your bed with and how you do or don’t procreate.

The more things change, the more they remain mired in libido and loins.

The new contract expressly forbids a “homosexual lifestyle” and any “public support” of one. But it says nothing about public support of the death penalty, something else that the church opposes.

The new contract specifically rules out any use or advocacy of abortion rights, surrogacy, even in vitro fertilization. But it doesn’t address possible advocacy of the sorts of bloody military engagements that the church often condemns.

The new contract forbids “living together outside marriage,” “sexual activity out of wedlock” and any public endorsement of either. But there’s no reference to concern for the downtrodden, to the spirit of giving, to charity. And while those are surely more difficult to monitor, aren’t they as essential to Catholic principles, and closer to the core of the faith?

And these specifics contradict what Pope Francis said last year about the church’s undue attention to a handful of divisive social issues.

There are so many losers here: kids — many from the inner city — who depend on parochial schools that will now be drained of talent; younger teachers who can’t afford to quit and will carry an embittered attitude into their classrooms; Catholics everywhere, forced to wrestle anew with their church’s archaic fixations; church leaders, who have such a sad knack for driving people away. Isn’t that what Pope Francis was urging an end to?

As for the treatment of American nuns, these blog post highlights summarizes Pope Francis' disconnect between his words and his actions:

Hey, remember when totes progressive Pope Francis said that women should have more influence in the Catholic Church hierarchy? And everyone was all OMG HE IS SO GREAT I LOVES THIS POPE SO MUCH? Ha ha whoooooooooops!

The Vatican official overseeing the crackdown on the largest umbrella group for U.S. nuns is pressing forward with the overhaul under Pope Francis.

Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, the Vatican orthodoxy watchdog, reprimanded officers of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious for planning to honor a theologian who had been criticized by U.S. bishops and said the sisters must show more willingness to cooperate.

Mueller made the remarks in a meeting last Wednesday with the group's leaders in Rome. He apologized repeatedly for speaking so bluntly, while reminding the sisters their organization held its status within the church only through Vatican approval.

"Nice organization you got there, ladies. It'd be a shame if something happened to it!"

The reform order was issued in 2012 under now-retired Pope Benedict XVI, after an investigation concluded the nuns' group had taken positions that undermined Roman Catholic teaching on the priesthood and homosexuality while promoting "radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith." Investigators praised the nuns' humanitarian work, but accused them of focusing too much on social justice and ignoring critical issues, such as fighting abortion.

You might notice that a theme is beginning to emerge, ahem. Pope Francis says something that sounds vaguely progressive; it gets a whole lot of fawning headlines; then comes evidence that it was nothing but empty rhetoric.

Like I've said for a long time now: This guy isn't interested in progress. He's interested in good PR.

 

 

North Carolina Catholic School: Masturbation and Poor Parenting Make You Gay

Sister Jane Dominic Laurel

Having been raised Catholic I am well aware of the bizarre obsession the Catholic Church has with all things sexual - basically the only "good sex" is for procreation, and you'd damn well better NOT enjoy it.  The batshitery is truly off the charts and it disturbs me to think of all the children in Catholic schools who will be likely emotionally and psychologically scarred for life.  Yes, some will walk away from Catholicism in time - 30% of Catholics do - but countless others will remain damaged from the experience.  Now, a Catholic school in North Carolina is under fire for teaching students that masturbation and poor parenting cause one to be gay. For those who are deluding themselves into thinking the Catholic Church is changing under Pope Francis, this should be another  wake up call. Here are highlights from the New Civil Rights Movement:

A Catholic high school in Charlotte, North Carolina is under fire after one of its regular guest instructors last week delivered a lecture that reportedly blamed poor parenting, single parenting, pornography and masturbation as the causes of homosexuality. Sister Jane Dominic Laurel is accused also of telling students at a mandatory school assembly at the Charlotte Catholic High School that gay people have have between 500 and 1000 sexual partners, and of portraying same-sex couples as child abusers.

QNotes, a North Carolina-based LGBT news outlet which is reporting and closely following the story published one student’s account:

“Then she started talking about how gays [sic] people are gay because they have an absent father figure, and therefore they have not received the masculinity they should have from their father,” reads one student’s account of the message. “Also a guy could be gay if he masterbates [sic] and so he thinks he is being turned on by other guys. And then she gave an example of one of her gay ‘friends’ who said he used to go to a shed with his friends and watch porn and thats why he was gay. … Then she talked about the statistic where gay men have had either over 500 or 1000 sexual partners and after that I got up and went to the bathroom because I should not have had to been subject to that extremely offensive talk.”

Students and parents are demanding an apology from the school.

QNotes published a letter (PDF) that accuses the school’s chaplain and Sister Jane Dominic Laurel of enabling “the dissemination of the misleading, offensive, and hateful messages,” and taking advantage of their positions “to push your own prejudices and bigotry upon the Charlotte Catholic community despite this community’s deliberate efforts to avoid it when presented as an extracurricular event.”

Using outdated or false statistics to tell children and young adults that their LGBTQ friends, family members, and colleagues are the result of their parents’ missteps is damaging. Suggesting that LGBTQ members of the very audience you were addressing owe their sexual identities to pornography and masturbation is abhorrent. Presenting these false ideas to high school students not only advocates discrimination of LGBTQ students, but also tells those individuals that they are damaged or incomplete. Consider for a moment the severe and ongoing effect this type of message has on the current LGBTQ students at Charlotte Catholic. Consider the power this message has to empower bullies of these same students.

QNotes reports that Sister Jane Dominic Laurel has previously partnered with the Ruth Institute [a designated hate group] , formerly an arm of the the National Organization For Marriage .

In a video of one of her lectures from two years ago, Sr. Dominic teaches (wrongly) that couples who regularly attend church have a 90 percent or greater chance of not divorcing, and couples who use “natural family planning” are the least-likely to divorce.

Cincinnati Diocese Teacher Contract Bans "Homosexual Lifestyle"

As those who want Pope Francis to be something that he is not continue to delude themselves, the actions by bishops across the globe continue to prove that the Roman Catholic Church remains as anti-gay as ever.  Actions, not a few seemly less intolerant words, tell the real story.  And actions confirm that nothing has really changed in the Church, the world's last absolute monarchy.  A case in point?  The new teacher contract for teachers at Catholic Schools in the diocese of Cincinnati which not only targets gays but anyone else who fails to toe the line on the Church's warped obsession on sexual practices and in some ways, modernity, itself.  Here are highlights from Cincinnati.com:

Teachers in Cincinnati Archdiocese schools could lose their jobs if they violate a new employment contract that clamps down on their personal lives beyond school walls.

The new contract obtained by The Enquirer has doubled in size and is strikingly different from previous Archdiocese teacher employment agreements.

For the first time, it details prohibited practices such as gay "lifestyles," out-of-wedlock relationships, abortions and fertility methods that go against Catholic teachings.

The contract for the 2014-15 school year explicitly orders teachers to refrain "from any conduct or lifestyle which would reflect discredit on or cause scandal to the school or be in contradiction to Catholic doctrine or morals." It goes so far as to ban public support of the practices.

Under the new contract, teachers are expressly prohibited from: "improper use of social media/communication, public support of or publicly living together outside of marriage; public support of or sexual activity out of wedlock; public support of/or homosexual lifestyle; public support of/or use of abortion; public support of/or use of a surrogate mother; public support or use of in vitro fertilization or artificial insemination."

Tom Miele, president of the pastoral council for the St. Monica-St. George Catholic Church in Clifton Heights, questioned the restrictions on personal behavior and freedom of expression.  "It seems awfully intrusive and it all seems unfair," said the Covedale resident and father of three graduates from Archdiocesen schools.

More restrictive employment contracts are necessary, she said, "to assure that expectations are clear, church employers review policies and contractual language on a periodic basis. Recent court cases do not lessen the importance of this practice."

Most of the teachers in the Cincinnati Archdiocese's 19-county school system have not yet seen the new contract, which also covers local ministers. Deadlines for teachers to sign the new contract are set by their school employers, but in general the contracts are required to be signed by the end of the current school year.

Recent Archdiocese firings, suspensions, dismissals for clashing with church teaching

• In 2009 a nun was suspended by the Archdiocese for publicly supporting the ordination of women priests.
• Later that year a volunteer religion education teacher was dismissed after her letter to The Enquirer in support of the suspended nun was published.
• In 2010 the Cincinnati Archdiocese fired an unmarried teacher who became pregnant by artificial insemination. A federal court ruled in 2013 in her favor, ordering the Archdiocese to pay her $171,000 for her improper firing.
• In 2013, an assistant principal at Purcell Marian High School was fired for writing on his public blog his support of gay marriage.

Meanwhile, of course, the Church continues to engage in cover ups for sexual predator priests and fights tooth and claw to avoid paying just compensation to victims of sexual abuse.  One can only hope that teachers who are able to find different jobs will leave the Catholic school system and  that the system will slowly atrophy and die.  Those who expect change in the Church delude themselves.  Only by a mass exodus of members and, better yet, a cutting off of financial support will the Church ever be forced to change.  It is a sick institution run by bitter old men, many of whom are in need of significant mental health interventions. 

AFA's Bryan Fischer: Gays Should Face Job Discrimination

It is amazing how the "godly Christian" crowd do all in their power to stigmatize gays and make our lies Hell, yet disclaim any responsibility for gay teen suicides or, worse yet, blame our sexual orientation for our plight rather than recognize the soul killing damage the non-stop campaign of hater takes upon its targets.  And the Christofascists just keep piling on with the anti-gay  hatred.  A case in point: AFA's Bryan Fischer who is applauding the firing of a lesbian Catholic school teacher  who was "outed" when her mother's obituary mentioned her partner.  Right Wing Watch looks at the hate and bigotry flowing from AFA which is rightly a registered hate group:

As part of Bryan Fischer’s attempts to “reclaim the ‘D’ word” — discrimination — the American Family Association spokesman is praising a Catholic school in Ohio which fired a teacher after she named her partner in her mother’s obituary.

“The school discriminated against this teacher, yes they absolutely did and they should have,” Fischer said, “they were absolutely right to do it…. It is right to discriminate against people who engage in aberrant sexual behavior, we should discriminate against people like that.”

Fischer maintained that the school was right to discriminate against her “immoral sexual behavior” in the same way “we discriminate against shoplifters.”

As I have said before, it is far past time that the public treat far right Christians with any deference or respect.  They are mean, nasty and despicable individuals.

Roman Catholic Church: Vigilant Against Gay Teachers, But Coddles Child Rapists

Events at an Ohio Catholic school put in sharp focus the warped priorities and morality of the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy.  If you are a priest who molests and rapes children and youths, you can rely on a Vatican orchestrated conspiracy to protect you and maintain you on the payroll.  And if you are a member of the high clergy and things get too hot with local police authorities, you can count on a plum position at the Vatican to keep you out of the clutches of the authorities (e.g., Cardinal Law who was whisked out of Boston to Rome).  But if you are a gay teacher in a Catholic school  and your secret is inadvertently leaked, you will be unemployed before you know what hits you.   A piece in the New York Daily News looks at what happened to Carla Hale (pictured below), who was outed as a lesbian after her mother’s obituary listed her girlfriend as a survivor.  Here are highlights:

An Ohio woman was fired from her job of 19 years at a Catholic high school after being outed as gay.  But the Columbus, Ohio, community has rallied around Carla Hale, circulating a petition urging her reinstatement to Bishop Watterson High School.

“It’s amazing that they’ve come together and rallied around this situation,” Hale told the Columbus Dispatch. “I’m in awe of them.”

The physical education teacher took time off from school in February in the wake of her mother’s death. Her mother’s obituary mentioned Hale and her female partner as survivors, which attracted the attention of an “appalled” parent.



“If not for an obituary that appeared in the paper, none of this would be happening,” she said.  That parent wrote an anonymous letter to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus, and administrators responded by firing Hale later in March for violating a morality clause.

Hale has filed a grievance and may also have on her side a Columbus city ordinance that prohibits employers from discriminating based on sexual orientation. She’s hired a lawyer, Thomas Tootle, who said fear of repercussions from the Catholic Church “forces people in the closet.”

Hale says her sexuality was never an issue during her 19 years at Bishop Watterson.  “I’m a very private person. I think the kids realize I’m there if they need me, but I would never talk about anything like that,” she said. “If they had to describe me, they would say I’m a fanatic about soccer, I have a dog named Boomer and I have three kids I talk about a lot. But beyond that, they wouldn’t know anything else about me.”

“The school claims its mission is to teach its students about love, acceptance, and tolerance, and yet it did none of this in the way it treated Ms. Hale,” the petition, started by Jackson Garrity, reads. “That is why we all have to stand up together and let it be known that this decision is unacceptable. If we do not fight this issue now, it will happen again, and that is not something we can allow.”

New York Archdiocese Spends Opposing Gay Rights - Now It Looks to Close 28 Schools

This blog has noted before the misplaced priority of the Roman Catholic Church leadership which has spent millions of dollars seeking to keep LGBT citizens stigmatized and deprived of civil legal rights even as its churches fall into repair and face the wrecking ball and Catholic schools across America are closed down and shuttered.  Pope Benedict XVI and his fellow arch conservatives - dare we say reactionaries - have at times spoken of a smaller, "purer" church and it appears that they may well get their wish.  The Catholic Archdiocese of New York which is headed by Cardinal Timothy Dolan (pictured above right) who verily drips with anti-gay animus is preparing to close up to 28 Catholic schools because of lack of funds - and dropping enrollment as more Americans move away from institutional religion.  The New York Times looks at the situation.  Here are highlights:

For 135 years, Holy Cross School has taught at the Crossroads of the World, educating first the offspring of longshoremen and dockworkers, now the children of bus company, hotel and office workers in Times Square.

But now, Holy Cross is one of 28 elementary schools being considered for closing this year by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. The proposed shutdowns are the latest in a wave that has swept away Catholic elementary schools in the Northeast and Midwest in recent decades.

In the New York Archdiocese, which extends from Staten Island north almost to Albany, fewer than 75,000 students now attend 245 Catholic elementary and high schools, down from 212,000 students in 414 schools in the early 1960s. 

 Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, the archbishop of New York, closed 26 elementary schools in 2011 . . . .  The archdiocese is in the process of regionalizing elementary school management and financing, and is hoping that new revenue sources, including an archdiocesan tax levied on each parish to support all schools in its local region, will help reduce the persistent operational deficits that it says are forcing the closings. 

Among the boroughs, the Bronx is the one that is being most significantly affected. The archdiocese closed six parish elementary schools in the borough in 2011, and eight more are now deemed at-risk, including Blessed Sacrament, which Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Supreme Court attended, and the neighboring St. Anthony’s School.

[I]nevitably, some children whose schools close will not transfer to another Catholic school; in 2011, the archdiocese said, 36 percent of the children whose schools were closed left its school system. 

Some of the millions spent fighting gay rights could have kept a number of these schools open.  One can only hope that some of the disgruntled parents of students impacted by the closings will come to this realization and hopefully voice their anger and "vote with their feet" and walk away from the Church.

Maggie Gallagher Continues to Enrich Herself Through Anti-Gay Hate

Personally, one of the most obscene, reprehensible, and morally challenged members of the professional Christian set is Maggie Gallagher. The same Maggie Gallagher who is married to a Hindu who she keeps hidden away more securely than the most closeted self-loathing gay. Not content with raking in the dough through NOM and its hate and bigotry peddling affiliates, now Gallagher is about to latch onto the teet of Ave Maria School of Law, a wingnut Roman Catholic law school in Naples, Florida. The law school which will house a so-called called the Center for Research on Marriage, Religion and Public Policy will be headed up by guess who? Maggie, of course, who will further enrich herself with a salary. Jeremy Hooper at Good As You has the details of the hate mistress' latest anti-gay activities. Here are highlights:
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So yet another gig for Maggie that's wholly about exalting personal faith views on marriage and morality in a way that influences shared public policy. The continued goals are [1] to shape young legal minds in a way that further muddies the waters between civil marriage licensing and its optional (even if oft-utilized) religious ceremony component; [2] to make marriage all about reproduction, even though procreation is also a wholly optional component of marriage (one that many same-sex couples also engage in); and [3] to collect a paycheck while doing all this. Maggie's profitable, personal prayers injected into the realms of civil discrimination and unjust division.
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She sees her religion as superseding civil matters that she finds personally conflicting ("to fight against an unjust civil order"). In short: She thinks she knows better,

Canadian Catholic Schools Reject Participation in Homophobia Survey

One has to wonder what the Catholic schools are afraid of. Could it be that the participation in the survey might reveal the vile anti-gay mentality propagated by the Catholic Church? Or is it merely that the Catholic schools are trying to pretend that gays and anti-gay bullying do not exist? As a former Catholic, I unfortunately know all too well personally how badly the Catholic Church's anti-gay indoctrination screws one up emotionally and menatally if one happens to be gay. Here are some highlights from CBC News (http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2008/01/25/egale-survey.html):

The survey is sponsored by Egale Canada, a national organization that promotes the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people. When the survey was launched in December, Egale approached school boards across the country to help distribute the survey to students from Grade 8 to Grade 12. Egale executive director Helen Kennedy said trustees from three Catholic boards in Toronto, Guelph, Ont., and Alberta, have all said no.

"The study is not about sexual behaviour, it is about social behaviour," said Kennedy. "It's about bullying, harassment and taunting in our schools." Egale has had some success with its campaign. Public boards in Thunder Bay and Vancouver are participating and Egale said other public boards are negotiating how they can take part. Social agencies are also helping to distribute the survey to students.