Blogger Jonathan Rowe looks at the case of a man fired by Allstate for posting an anti-gay-rights missive (that quoted the discredited statistics of Paul Cameron) on a socially conservative website. The fired guy is now claiming religious discrimination.
I think that, in general, companies shouldn't fire employees for away-from-work activities that don't break any laws unless the activity is truly egregious. Like being a Ku Klux Klan "Grand Kleagle," as was Robert Byrd, the still-intensely homophobic West Virginia senator. And while I'd argue private employers should have the legal right to fire employees if they feel they're just not working out, as a general principle discriminating on the basis of off-site political activities sets a bad precedent.
Liberals like to raise the "scandal" of the Hollywood blacklist, when in fact most (some argue all) of those blacklisted were active members of the Communist Party defending Stalin's party line - speaking of which, Cathy Young has a nice review, here, of the new book "Red Star Over Hollywood." I'd agree that blacklisting communists, dupes that they were (and many still are), only serves to make totalitarians appear as martyrs. Let's not do the same for homophobes.
Rowe, by the way, goes on to look at the larger issue of
conservatives who claim that being gay should not be a protected
class under anti-discrimination law but that religion should be,
when in fact sexual orientation is far less of a "choice" than
religious affiliation. He quotes an article of mine, which quotes,
in turn, IGF contributing author David Boaz, on that
matter.
More Recent Postings
6/19/05 - 6/25/05