Help, Help, They're Being Oppressed!!!

Ed Brayton of Dispatches from the Culture Wars over at Freethought Blogs has a story detailing yet another horrible example of persecution against Christians.

The EEOC recently ruled against an employee of the EPA’s National Center for Environmental Assessment who complained of religious harassment because the director of the agency sent an email to all employees about an office party to celebrate another employee’s marriage. The employee, who is Pentecostal, didn’t like that because it was a same-sex marriage. And apparently, informing him that he works with gay people is stomping all over his religious views.

Oh no's! I werk wit teh gays!

In case you suspect I am selectively quoting in order to make the complainant sound like an idiot, The Volokh Conspiracy provides excerpts from the ruling, Walker v. Jackson (EEOC Oct. 6, 2011).

On December 1, 2011 [sic], Complainant filed a formal EEO complaint alleging that he was subjected to harassment and reprisal on the basis of his religious beliefs (Pentecostal). Briefly, the complaint alleged that, on November 18, 2010 [sic], Complainant was the recipient of an email from the Acting Director, sent to the NCEA [EPA’s National Center for Environmental Assessment] global list-serve (which includes Complainant and all other NCEA employees), announcing an on-site celebration of a same-sex marriage of an employee which read as follows:

[Employee A] and his partner [named] are getting married this Sunday. The IO is sponsoring an informal celebration to congratulate [Employee A] on this happy event. Please feeI free to drop by the IO conference room on Thursday, October 7 at 4:30 P.M. to wish them well.

Thirteen days later, on October 18, 2010, Complainant responded to the Acting Director’s email, with a copy to the NCEA global list-serve, with the following message:

I feel your message announcing the celebration of the “union” of [Employee A] and his “Partner” was offensive and insensitive to my religious faith as a Christian. I think it is general knowledge that the Christian faith only condones “marriages” between men and women, not men and other men. As acting Office Director, I feel you could have been more “sensitive” and “neutral” with regards to this issue.

The next day, NCEA employees sent approximately 15–20 emails on the global list-serve (including Complainant) congratulating Employee A on his marriage. None of these emails specifically mentioned Complainant or his email. The record does show that two employees did email Complainant personally (not sent to the NCEA global list-serve) and expressed the opinion that Complainant’s email was insensitive because it was sent to everyone, including Employee A, rather than just to the Acting Director.

By final decision dated April 14, 2011, the Agency dismissed the complaint, pursuant to 29 C.F.R. § 1614.107(a)(1), for failure to state a claim. The instant appeal followed. On appeal, Complainant argues that the 15 employees who copied him on the congratulatory emails despite receiving his email protesting the Acting Director’s original email were retaliating against him and harassing him because of his religious faith and beliefs. Complainant claimed that the barrage of emails “affected his psychological well-being in the office.” ...

Oh no's! I werk wit teh gays!

People. Your religious faith, no matter how strongly you believe, does not give you the right to not be offended. Gays do not have to go back into the closet if the very knowledge of their proximity gives you the cold sweats. Your co-workers do not have to agree with or respect your bigotry. You are not being oppressed.

Volokh sums it up perfectly:

Hint: If you publicly complain about a colleague’s celebration, and a bunch of people respond by conspicuously congratulating the colleague, that’s disagreement — it’s not harassment.

Catholic Bishop Finally Charged in Connection to Child Abuse

Ed Brayton over at Dispatches From The Culture Wars brought this to the attention of the blogosphere, so I will let his words and the original article speak for themselves, while I concentrate on the upcoming response from the Catholic League.

For the first time ever in the U.S., a Catholic church official has been criminally charged for failing to report suspected child molestation by a priest in his charge to the police. The New York Times reports:

The details from said New York Times piece:

A bishop in the Roman Catholic Church has been indicted for failure to report suspected child abuse, the first time in the 25-year history of the church’s sex abuse scandals that the leader of an American diocese has been held criminally liable for the behavior of a priest he supervised.

The indictment of the bishop, Robert W. Finn, and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph by a county grand jury was announced on Friday. Each was charged with one misdemeanor count involving a priest accused of taking pornographic photographs of girls as recently as this year. They pleaded not guilty.

The case caused an uproar among Catholics in Kansas City this year when Bishop Finn acknowledged that he knew of the photographs last December but did not turn them over to the police until May. During that time, the priest, the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, is said to have continued to attend church events with children, and took lewd photographs of another young girl.

A decade ago the American bishops pledged to report suspected abusers to law enforcement authorities — a policy also recommended last year by the Vatican. Bishop Finn himself had made such a promise three years ago as part of a $10 million legal settlement with abuse victims in Kansas City.

Ahem.

People, people, calm down.

Bishop Finn, as a moral and ethical leader in the Roman Catholic Church, was more than likely just holding on to the pictures to protect the innocence of the little girl in question.

There is just no reason to jump to wild conclusions like B.Finn was attempting to protect a struggling artist/priest from a world that would never understand the artistic vision of naked kids representing the Innocence of the Virgin Mary. There is no evidence that Bishop Finn was masturbating wildly to the photos while in his office or the confessional, or that he paid the priest in question with envelopes filled to bursting with money from the Offering to produce the artistic visions.

Only in a culture as Evil as ours would someone point the finger of blame at the Roman Catholic Church and its leaders, when the true danger to our children is obviously from the Gay Agenda. The Catholic faith, and its leaders are servants of God. Whatever a priest or Bishop deems fitting to do to a younger member of the flock, whether it includes nudity, fellatio, buggery, whips, ball gags, video/photographic equipment, and/or large amounts of drugged communion wine, we can be sure that it is for God and God alone, and not due to any base desire of the priest.

You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

….

There, I already wrote Bill Donohue’s response for him. The bigot better give me credit if I see any of this in a press release from the Catholic League.

Women’s Rights Activists Win Nobel Peace Prize

Much thanks to Skepchick's Rebecca Watson for this one.

Although the committee has made some strange decisions in the past, (such as Obama's prize. Still not sure what the hell he did to deserve one, but anyway...) this one is, to borrow a cliched sports metaphor, a slam dunk.

The plight of women in Africa and the Middle East is one that we can never forget. All the freedoms I enjoy mean jack and squat until freedom is enjoyed by all.

Here's to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee, and Tawakul Karman.

Here's to Heroes!