DrTaffy,
I recall having a lengthy conversation with you, in which I eventually made clear that I do not consider such conversations a place for grandstanding or one-upsmanship.
Then I would suggest that you refrain from ‘grand-standing and one-upsmanship’ yourself, as this whole diatribe of yours would most
certainly count as ‘invective’ if it is ‘invective’ for me to say that I think your ‘equivalency’ is distorted.
Especially as your diatribe is itself doing the exact thing it accuses me of doing - and while my point was relevant to the discussion, yours is nothing but a personal attack on me.
This is all the more ironic as my point to Exiled Child was about the Golden Rule. Since Catholic institutions are
notorious for firing employees who disagree with Catholic opinion, it is more than a little hypocritical for them to complain that “one can certainly lose one’s job for speaking out against homosexuality, depending on where one works”.
The rules should apply to all equally.
If it is OK for Catholics to fire employees for disagreeing with them outside work, then it is OK for non-Catholics to fire employees (even Catholic ones) for disagreeing with them outside work.
If it is OK for you to criticise me, then it is OK for me to criticise you.
But notice that the explicit role of the Catholic school is to train a child in Christian virtue. Teachers are supposed to be models of that virtue.
And you
apparently think that this is only true for Catholic teachers. In other words you are apparently assuming that your ethical beliefs are more sincerely and deeply held that those of anyone else.
I would say that every school has the same right to expect their teachers to be models of their ethical system. Catholic schools get no special consideration. Either all schools can fire a teacher for expressing views outside of school, or none can.
This is where the distortion of your ‘equivalency’ comes in - you seem to assume that all Catholic Schools automatically have more strongly held views than any other school, and that therefore a Catholic School can only fairly be compared to a single-issue campaign charity, not to another school.
So when a teacher enters a gay marriage (this is not a pro-gay “sentiment”, and it is not private), that teacher violates the purpose of the school.
The example I cited was of a man who had only expressed, on his personal blog, his views on gay marriage. Freedom of speech applies to all, equally.
Now, suppose there is a secular (private) school that supports gay marriage. Surely nothing about the teacher’s public life choices outside the school could possibly violate the school’s prerogative to support gay marriage.
Nothing about a teacher’s public life choices
outside a Catholic school could possibly violate the school’s prerogative to
oppose gay marriage. But Catholics seem to feel that Catholic schools have the right to force their beliefs on their teachers, but Catholic teachers have the right to express their views (often even
at the school) if they are teaching elsewhere.
I support private organizations’ right to advocate for their own values. Do you?
Of course, but irrelevant. Noone has challenged this here.
More close to being relevant would be whether I support private organizations’ right to fire any employee who disagrees with them on some political or religious viewpoint.
But even
that is a red herring -
wherever you stand on that issue, the point I was making was simply about whether or not the rules apply to everyone equally, or is there one set of rules for one group and another set of rules for everyone else.
Unless you
disagree with me that the rules should apply equally, you seem to be stirring up a rather belligerent debate about nothing.
