Unhelpful in Canada

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Over at Andrew Sullivan’s site, where I’ve been guest-blogging, I look at a case you can expect to hear about from gay marriage opponents: Canadian sportscaster fired, he plausibly claims, for opposing SSM in a personal tweet. Gay activists should help well-intentioned supporters understand that creating martyrs for the other side is not helpful.

32 Comments for “Unhelpful in Canada”

  1. posted by esurience on

    Gay people had to convince society that we were deserving of employment discrimination protections — in other words, that the content of our character, and our ability to perform a job, had nothing to do with our sexual orientation.

    When bigots make the argument successfully that the content of their character and ability to perform their job is not implicated by their bigotry, they can have employment discrimination protection too.

    Isn’t that the only fair and reasonable thing to do?

    The trouble for them is that their argument is a non-starter.

  2. posted by grendel on

    I live in Canada and I’ve never even heard of the incident. That shows you what kind of traction is getting up here.

    In your Sullivan blog you tell us before we get too excited about how this might happen here to remember “This happened in Canada, not the U.S. No First Amendment up there”.

    First, the statement “Canada does not have a First Amendment” is true only in the trivial sense. There is no “Bill of Rights” either, but the constitution of Canada does include something called the “Charter of Rights and Freedoms”, Article 2 of which says “Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: (a) freedom of conscience and religion; (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication; (c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and (d) freedom of association.” So, news flash, Canadians do have a constitutionally protected right to free speech. Sure the two countries may draw the limits on that right a bit differently — in the US a network got fined millions of dollars for “clothing malfunction” that produced nothing but a yawn up here – but speech in Canada is pretty much as free as in the States.

    Second, I am not sure where the free speech controversy is. Rogers Communication, a private employer, decided it did not want to be associated with a certain freelance contractor (he was not even an employee) due to his publicly-stated controversial opinions. Isn’t that the employer’s right? What am I not seeing here?

    First, Canada does not have a “First Amendment” sure but it does have something called the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, article 2 of which says “Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
    (a) freedom of conscience and religion; (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication; (c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and (d) freedom of association.” So, news flash, Canadians do have a constitutionally protected right to free speech. Now the two countries may draw the limits on that right a bit differently — in the US a network can get fined millions of dollars for “clothing malfunction” that produced nothing but a yawn up here – but speech in Canada is pretty much

    Sportsnet suggested in a release that their problems with Goddard did not start with his decision to share his political views online.

    “Mr. Goddard was a freelance contractor and in recent weeks it had become clear that he is not the right fit for our organization,” the sports broadcaster’s communications director, Dave Rashford, said in a short statement.

  3. posted by Brian Miller on

    An snti-gay sportscaster can be fired here, as well, for anti-gay statements despite the first amendment.

    The first amendment simply protects your speech from government sanction. It doesn’t protect one’s right to be a jackass.

    Yes, if one tweeted in favor of racial segregation, anti-gay marriage equality, or other bigoted things that impacted the bottom line of the radio station, he would be fired here as well. Sportscasters are public figures whose first job is promotion of the station — if they choose to embrace an unpopular point of view that targets a major demographic minority — Jews, racial minorities, gay people — then they should expect to be fired.

  4. posted by Brian Miller on

    PS — what’s a “personal tweet?”

  5. posted by grendel on

    How about I try that again, this time with fewer errors?

    I live in Canada and I’ve never even heard of the incident. That shows you what kind of traction the story is getting up here.

    In your Sullivan blog you tell us before we get too excited about how this might happen here to remember “This happened in Canada, not the U.S. No First Amendment up there”.

    First, the statement “Canada does not have a First Amendment” is true only in the trivial sense. There is no “Bill of Rights” either, but the constitution of Canada does include something called the “Charter of Rights and Freedoms”, Article 2 of which says “Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: (a) freedom of conscience and religion; (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication; (c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and (d) freedom of association.” So, news flash, Canadians do have a constitutionally protected right to free speech. Sure the two countries may draw the limits on that right a bit differently — in the US a network got fined millions of dollars for a “clothing malfunction” that produced nothing but a yawn up here – but speech in Canada is pretty much as free as in the States.

    Second, I am not sure where the free speech controversy is. Rogers Communication, a private employer, decided it did not want to be associated with a certain freelance contractor (he was not even an employee) due to his publicly-stated controversial opinions. Isn’t that the employer’s right? What am I not seeing here?

  6. posted by Brian Miller on

    Isn’t that the employer’s right?

    What you have to understand about US conservatives, grendel, is that they don’t believe in free speech, nor free markets, nor free association.

    Sure, they rage about the injustice of regulations that prevent a corporation from firing a worker based on his “indecent lifestyle” or skin color… but the moment the same corporation fires a religious conservative for proselytizing at work, or posting anti-gay slogans on the walls of his office, they howl for government regulation to “protect” him.

    In such a world of double standards, you’ll never see a conservative consistently defend free markets, free expression and freedom of association. Since the activity took place in Canada, in the mind of a conservative, it happened in a “COMMUNIST hellhole without the First Amendment.” That the first amendment does not, would not, and has not protected obnoxious bigots in this country from loss of employment doesn’t matter… in dealing with the conservative, all logic, consistency and knowledge must be checked at the door.

  7. posted by Houndentenor on

    I disapprove of quite a few people’s marriages. The difference of course is that my disapproval has no consequence whatsoever. They are still married and there’s no reason I can think of that anyone should care what I think. If only that worked the other way.

    I don’t give a damn what people think about gay marriage so long as they don’t prevent me from marrying.

    No, I don’t think someone should be fired for a tweet. Of course people can be fired for making their employer look bad. So anyone tweeting ought to think carefully about posting controversial things because once it’s out there it’s a huge mess and many companies are not happy with bad publicity.

  8. posted by Jorge on

    The trouble for them is that their argument is a non-starter.

    Mmm-hmm.

    First of all, someone who opposes gay marriage is not a bigot.

    Second, expressing a political opinion that is not bigoted does not negatively implicate one’s ability to do his or her job fairly for all people.

    Third, the firing, because it is alleged to be bigoted, does implicate the company’s ability to do its job fairly for all people.

    I do agree with Brian Miller that if you have a private employer, you have very little protection under the First Amendment. The National Labor Relations Board might help.

    • posted by Houndentenor on

      “First of all, someone who opposes gay marriage is not a bigot.”

      I’m not sure we would all agree on that point.

      • posted by Jorge on

        Presicely my point in challenging the assumption that someone who opposes gay marriage is a bigot.

        • posted by esurience on

          Well you didn’t really challenge it. Everything that followed from that relied on us agreeing with you, but you didn’t give us a reason to.

          “Second, expressing a political opinion that is not bigoted does not negatively implicate one’s ability to do his or her job fairly for all people.”

          This implies you think it would be just fine for a company to fire someone for expressing a bigoted opinion.

        • posted by Jorge on

          Everything that followed from that relied on us agreeing with you, but you didn’t give us a reason to.

          And you did? Your whole post falls apart because it assumes that people who oppose gay marriage are bigoted. They are not. No, I am not willing to get into a long drawn-out discussion on this. It’s been done before. You either agree with me or you don’t. I certainly don’t agree with you.

  9. posted by Regan DuCasse on

    Well, this IS about a corporate culture and the image they care to maintain. There are companies who employ gay people or want to attract gay people’s money with outreach to not only a diverse workplace, but to a diverse customer base.
    When someone puts out an opinion that can embarrass a company’s image or offend a customer base they need, then yeah…you’re not entitled to your job.
    Besides, so many religious people are using this victim card in areas where they aren’t even CONSISTENT in how they go about applying it.
    Like these county clerks in NY state who want to refuse to issue licenses or officiate weddings for ss couples.
    Two have been forced to resign so far. And yes, the first one is being touted as a martyr.
    Wrong on several counts. A martyr is a person willing to be sacrificed for the cause they believe in. These Christians we’re talking about don’t want to have to give up a job or their social status, they want gay people to be sacrificed instead.
    The most recent clerk invoked her Catholic religion as grounds.
    Did she do this with divorced and remarried couples? Mixed religion couples? How about couples with children out of wedlock?

    The reason why?
    SS couples are the only ones easily identifiable and she wouldn’t ASK after the status of all the others who meet the usual criteria for Catholics. Otherwise either she’d never TAKE a job like she has, or she’d have to apply the same criteria to couples OTHER than gay ones.
    And a lot of Christians with their own businesses, don’t put up signs that identify themselves as Christian or whatever, and which people they won’t serve because of it.
    The ball is in their court on this when it comes to being consistent, or not. Their choice.
    But their assertions are colliding with their hypocrisy and contradictions in terms. As well as the reality of a diverse culture that RESPECTS that diversity by having us live under the same standards for each of us.

    These can be the same people who invoke God’s laws as the ones they only or should be subject to when abusing a gay person or woman’s birth control access. While claiming protections by the Constitution and Bill of Rights in a heartbeat for themselves.
    It’s only when they are BUSTED on that hypocrisy and can’t make such contradictory claims, is when they cry they are being persecuted.
    Not such brave ‘soldiers’ after all.

  10. posted by Hunter on

    I’d much prefer the “martyrs” were on their side than ours — somehow, our martyrs are no longer able to complain about it.

    As Brian Miller quite rightly points out, there’s no free speech issue here. Goddard made a political statement on his “private” Twitter (whatever that is) and his private employer decided that was the final straw.

    And of course the anti-gay right will use this as much as they can. They don’t even need a real victim — if they don’t have one to hand, they’ll make one up.

    All else being equal, this is another non-story that’s going to be blown out of proportion by the right, aided and abetted by those who are treating them as though they had a legitimate case.

    • posted by Houndentenor on

      No one interfered with free speech rights here. The tweet wasn’t blocked, censored or deleted by the government. What conservatives want is to be able to say hateful things without criticism or consequences for what they say. That right doesn’t exist and never did. Again, I don’t think he should have been fired, but everyone knows that you can’t make your employer look bad in public and doing so will get you fired. I don’t know why people are stupid enough to think that saying certain things won’t land them in hot water. Did these “free speechers” make this case for Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave? Of course they didn’t.

      • posted by Hunter on

        I’ve seen reports that the company had other issues with him, and he was not a regular employee to begin with — he was a “contract worker” — i.e., freelance.

        Isn’t it odd how the right believes in the free marketplace for everything except ideas?

  11. posted by Regan DuCasse on

    Hi Jorge,
    I’d like to point out something important with regard to someone who is against ss marriage, and whether it makes them a bigot or not.
    I’m a black woman, and there are situations where a person may not feel consciously hateful or especially emotional about certain groups, but their social isolation from that group doesn’t really test their levels of sensitivity either.
    A person doesn’t have to be actively hateful, to do a LOT of damage. A person can be outrageously insensitive and can disregard a situation in which a person who HAS gone through different kinds of overt or covert dislike or indifference is still hurt by it.
    You’ve heard of the statement, ‘the soft bigotry of low expectations’? Well, there are always going to be different levels of how someone feels or responds to you because of the group you’re in. And if they are in a position to influence the quality of your life, then this is especially scary for those of us who don’t have much power against that influence.
    Where is the line or how thin is it, between terrible insensitivity and indifference, to a low level of bigotry that assumes things about you BECAUSE of what you are? Prejudice is just as awful as bigotry.
    Everyone who defines and defends their position against gay marriage, typically DOES make remarks or holds beliefs that are negative and prejudiced, so therefore defining THAT as bigotry is more accurate.
    Those straight people who bald face TELL a gay person that they choose to be gay, clearly defines another level of bigotry too.

    • posted by North Dallas Thirty on

      And hilariously, in a post railing against prejudice and bigotry, Regan DuCasse tries to claim absolute moral authority based on her skin color and gender.

      Not on her performance. Not on her life choices. Solely on her skin color and her gender.

      Again, projection. Since Regan is obsessed with skin color and gender, she assumes everyone else is — and since she cannot comprehend why anyone would ever criticize a black woman, she thinks anyone who does is racist and misogynist.

  12. posted by Jorge on

    IF you’re going to go that far, I will respect that. Otherwise I think it is irresponsible to make such blanket condemnations without any evidence.

    However, I cannot agree that when we talk about oppositon to gay marriage we are talking only about prejudice and ignorance. Mostly? We shall see. Many of the conservative people and institutions who stand most strongly against gay marriage include those who are the most educated about the nature of homosexuality, because despite science and education they maintain views based on, for example, religious faith and law. You’ve heard the statement “I have gay friends”, have you not? George W. Bush has gay friends–and was well aware his VP’s daughter was gay, Ann Coulter has gay friends, Rick Santorum had a gay communications director. These people aren’t as vulnerable to charges of bigotry as lazy people would like to think; all too many examples of “bigoted” statements are circular, merely recitations of political or ideological conservatism on gay/gay rights issues.

    How is it even possible to be any kind of intellectual these days without looking deeply at gay issues at least once?

    • posted by Hounentenor on

      People on your payroll aren’t your friends. You are not the friend of someone who you use as a tool to win votes of people who ARE bigoted. When we are talking about politicians (of any party) it’s probably wrong to assume they believe what they are saying. As often as not they are taking a position that strategists have convinced them will get them elected. Are Republican politicians really anti-gay or are they just willing to use gays to win votes from social conservatives? They are still scumbags if you ask me, but I suppose there is a difference.

      Yes, it’s bigotry to claim that some people are entitled to fewer protections under the law than others. I don’t see any way around that. And no, someone who thinks I can’t serve in the military, get married or who thinks it’s okay to deny me a job for being gay is most certainly not my friend.

      • posted by Jorge on

        You presume too much about me.

  13. posted by North Dallas Thirty on

    Actually, that’s not true, Houndentenor; you fully support and endorse people who think you can’t serve, can’t get married, and can be denied a job for being gay as long as they have the magical “D” after their name. Indeed, you call them “pro-gay” and “gay-supportive”.

    And that’s why the vast majority of Republicans see you the way that they do; you are a hypocrite who whines and cries and attacks them for doing things that you fully support and endorse your Obama Party and its members for doing.

    Republicans and religious people are not stupid. They recognize that gays like you are hypocritical bigots who hide behind their sexual orientation, just like the people I pointed out in San Francisco, and claim “persecution” whenever you’re not allowed to sexually harass your coworkers.

    • posted by Houndentenor on

      Right on cue with the usual strawman arguments as always, ND30.

      Once again, what’s your story? Why do you hate being gay so much?

  14. posted by North Dallas Thirty on

    You know, Houndentenor, no wonder you hate HR people so much; indeed, one of my friends who does the same thing in NYC has been called an “Uncle Tom” for actually enforcing the rules against gay people.

    You say you want to be treated equally…..then you scream and cry about discrimination when one of your fellow gays and lesbians gets fired for behavior that would get a straight person fired in a heartbeat.

    Better yet, you insist that a gay person who DOESN’T support and in fact criticizes gays and lesbians who misbehave in the workplace “hates being gay”.

    It’s a fascinating attempt at cultural control, much like your fellow Obama Party members like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson who scream “house nigger” and the like at black people who have the temerity to disagree with white liberals.

  15. posted by Regan DuCasse on

    Hello Jorge,
    I think perhaps it’s easy enough to see the large consensus in that objection to gay marriage doesn’t add up to ANY legal discrimination as it is.
    There tends to be objections based on non procreative sex and inability to naturally have children through op sex coupling. At least that the majority of the reasons you hear. Even from family and marriage reps.
    Well, there are no laws in any state in which children are a requirement to marry. Nor is there any discrimination based on non procreative sex or the decision or inability to have children.

    There aren’t any laws that prohibit marriage based on the presumed incompatibility of who is marrying.
    And usually the objections are accompanied by some kind of religious opinion on that.
    So it’s not a wrongful conclusion that such objections in the face of existing legal protections and the criteria for them for ALL other people, and the charge that gay people deserve exclusion or denial in those protections, are in fact fueled by prejudice.
    Some people are more overt in their objections and resort to the obvious name calling and stereotyping which can only be bigotry.
    And gay people have less power, even if they wanted to, to GENERALLY affect anyone’s quality of life, even if gay people were equally as prejudiced.
    Sometimes it might have to come down to who has had the power to do the most damage and who WANTS to and how would they go about it and make a conclusion from there.

  16. posted by Regan DuCasse on

    NDT,
    Get over it.

  17. posted by Jorge on

    And hilariously, in a post railing against prejudice and bigotry, Regan DuCasse tries to claim absolute moral authority based on her skin color and gender.

    I do not get that impression at all.

    It is not an absolute moral authority. Dissenting perspective would be my impression. And it is not based on “skin color” and “gender.” More like arguing for a social reason for her perspective.

    A person doesn’t have to be actively hateful, to do a LOT of damage. A person can be outrageously insensitive and can disregard a situation in which a person who HAS gone through different kinds of overt or covert dislike or indifference is still hurt by it.

    I believe a statement like that requires evidence. She used her demographics to provide an implicit window into… well, what I identify as liberal scholarship on issues of race, gender, and sexuality. I suppose it’s strange of me to say this while being critical of you for leaping to conclusions.

    I think you take people’s ideologies too personally.

  18. posted by Jorge on

    While I’m at it…

    North Dallas Thirty, if I were to ask you who you want to win the Republican Presidential primary, would you answer?

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