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RE: fired for being an atheist - 6/4/2010 7:42:22 PM   
tazzygirl


Posts: 37833
Joined: 10/12/2007
Status: offline 		Forced? How would you enforce such a policy?

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Telling me to take Midol wont help your butthurt.
RIP, my demon-child 5-16-11
Duchess of Dissent 1
Dont judge me because I sin differently than you.
If you want it sugar coated, dont ask me what i think! It would violate TOS.

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Profile   Post #: 61
RE: fired for being an atheist - 6/4/2010 7:44:03 PM   
Brain


Posts: 3792
Joined: 2/14/2007
Status: offline 		No, because it's not the same thing. I don't remember atheists exterminating 6 million Catholics.


quote:

ORIGINAL: kdsub

If she were a neo Nazi and working for a Jewish organization should she be forgiven?

If she were a Registered Democrat should she be secretary for the Republican party?

If she were working for an anti abortion group should she be forgiven if pro abortion?

If she is working for the NRA should she be forgiven for being anti gun?

On and on… just plain common sense I believe.

Butch


(in reply to kdsub)
Profile   Post #: 62
RE: fired for being an atheist - 6/4/2010 7:45:48 PM   
tazzygirl


Posts: 37833
Joined: 10/12/2007
Status: offline 		Not from lack of desire. Brain.

_____________________________

Telling me to take Midol wont help your butthurt.
RIP, my demon-child 5-16-11
Duchess of Dissent 1
Dont judge me because I sin differently than you.
If you want it sugar coated, dont ask me what i think! It would violate TOS.

(in reply to Brain)
Profile   Post #: 63
RE: fired for being an atheist - 6/4/2010 7:47:40 PM   
Brain


Posts: 3792
Joined: 2/14/2007
Status: offline 		Because she needed the job; because she needed the money to pay the bills.

quote:

ORIGINAL: pahunkboy

Why would she even want to work there?


(in reply to pahunkboy)
Profile   Post #: 64
RE: fired for being an atheist - 6/4/2010 7:51:05 PM   
Brain


Posts: 3792
Joined: 2/14/2007
Status: offline 		Me too and I'm looking forward to it. I'm sick and tired of bullies pushing people around. Just because they pay her salary they treat her like property and think they can do whatever they want telling her what to think.


quote:

ORIGINAL: MstrPBK

I see a Freedom of Religion Court Case in the future of someone real soon here.

MstrPBK
St. Paul, MN USa


(in reply to MstrPBK)
Profile   Post #: 65
RE: fired for being an atheist - 6/4/2010 7:54:33 PM   
Brain


Posts: 3792
Joined: 2/14/2007
Status: offline 		No, as far as I'm concerned it's blackmail. She needed the job and the money and they don't have the right to blackmail a person telling them how to think just because a person needs the job. The only thing that is important is if they can do the job. It doesn't or should not give the employer the right to control a person's life.


quote:

ORIGINAL: ThatDamnedPanda

I fail to see the problem here. Everyone knows how anti-religion I am, but as far as I'm concerned that school had every right to do exactly what they did. Their school,  their rules, and she agreed to them when she accepted the job. Open and shut case. 


(in reply to ThatDamnedPanda)
Profile   Post #: 66
RE: fired for being an atheist - 6/4/2010 7:57:46 PM   
tazzygirl


Posts: 37833
Joined: 10/12/2007
Status: offline 		Umm.. Brain... exactly what do you think a morality clause is? They can dictate your life to the extent that it affects their business. Adversely affect their bottom line and you are out the door.

_____________________________

Telling me to take Midol wont help your butthurt.
RIP, my demon-child 5-16-11
Duchess of Dissent 1
Dont judge me because I sin differently than you.
If you want it sugar coated, dont ask me what i think! It would violate TOS.

(in reply to Brain)
Profile   Post #: 67
RE: fired for being an atheist - 6/4/2010 8:02:06 PM   
Brain


Posts: 3792
Joined: 2/14/2007
Status: offline 		I don't think it matters if it's private or public. For me there is no difference. If you think they could fire her because it's private, it is the same thing as Rand Paul saying a restaurant is a private business so they don't have to serve black people. Or the Catholic school is private so they don't have to employ atheists. To me it is the same logic and in both cases it's wrong.
Bill

quote:

ORIGINAL: ThatDamnedPanda

quote:

ORIGINAL: tazzygirl

IF they take no public funding, Panda. Since the majority of church based schools do get federal money, then they should follow the same rules as everyone else.


Hm. I hadn't thought about that.

Damn it. The whole thing was so simple up until a moment ago!



(in reply to ThatDamnedPanda)
Profile   Post #: 68
RE: fired for being an atheist - 6/4/2010 8:07:35 PM   
Brain


Posts: 3792
Joined: 2/14/2007
Status: offline 		I would start by giving this woman her job back. And then I would enforce it just like they do when renting apartments to black people. You can't refuse to rent an apartment to a black person because of their color or you can't discriminate against a young woman because she might want to have a baby and needs to take time off work. I would do it the same way they do for all these other examples.


quote:

ORIGINAL: tazzygirl

Forced? How would you enforce such a policy?


(in reply to tazzygirl)
Profile   Post #: 69
RE: fired for being an atheist - 6/4/2010 8:09:36 PM   
Brain


Posts: 3792
Joined: 2/14/2007
Status: offline 		It's not the same thing. It is not immoral to be an atheist.

quote:

ORIGINAL: tazzygirl

Umm.. Brain... exactly what do you think a morality clause is? They can dictate your life to the extent that it affects their business. Adversely affect their bottom line and you are out the door.


(in reply to tazzygirl)
Profile   Post #: 70
RE: fired for being an atheist - 6/4/2010 8:53:29 PM   
GotSteel


Posts: 5871
Joined: 2/19/2008
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Fellow
In order to be considered as a teacher in religious schools the applicant usually needs to sign a statement confirming his/her faith and active involvement with a church. So, she violated the employment policies that was the basis of termination.

No, I'm pretty sure the judge wouldn't have granted her unemployment if she'd done that. According to her she told them she wasn't Catholic during the interview.

(in reply to Fellow)
Profile   Post #: 71
RE: fired for being an atheist - 6/4/2010 9:16:54 PM   
ThatDamnedPanda


Posts: 6060
Joined: 1/26/2009
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Brain

No, as far as I'm concerned it's blackmail. She needed the job and the money and they don't have the right to blackmail a person telling them how to think just because a person needs the job.


They're not telling her how to think, they're telling her how to act. Which they are perfectly entitled to do. This isn't about what she believed, it was about actions she took - actions which she knew were prohibited under terms of her employment, which she understood and agreed to. She has absolutely no leg to stand on.


_____________________________

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In the forest of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Made you all black and white and roly-poly like that?


(in reply to Brain)
Profile   Post #: 72
RE: fired for being an atheist - 6/5/2010 12:32:41 AM   
myotherself


Posts: 7157
Joined: 3/9/2006
From: The cold bit of the UK
Status: offline 		I'm with the Panda on this one. She knew from the start that she had to promote the religious ideals of the school. She signed a legal document saying she would do so, and then she reneged on the deal.

As for funding - I don't know how it works in the US, but in the UK faith schools get public funding, but they also get funding from the church. In return for fewer financial demands on the government, they are allowed to make stipulations on the people they employ. But they are NOT allowed to discriminate on grounds of faith. Being an atheist/agnostic/whatever should not stop a person teaching in a faith school, as long as they disclose this at the interview.

Should the teacher be held responsible for what she does and says in her private life? Well, yes! Imagine you're a senior exec at Pepsi, and every night you go home and post on your facebook account that Pepsi is shit and you prefer Coca Cola. Would you expect repercussions? Of course you would! It's the same thing here.

What it boils down to is that she was FULLY AWARE of the clauses in her contract, and she signed that contract of her own free will. She could have gone to a non-faith school, but she CHOSE to go to a faith school. Then she made public statements that broke the terms of her contract. She was an idiot.


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Profile   Post #: 73
RE: fired for being an atheist - 6/5/2010 12:36:23 AM   
WyldHrt


Posts: 6412
Joined: 6/5/2008
Status: offline
quote:

They're not telling her how to think, they're telling her how to act. Which they are perfectly entitled to do. This isn't about what she believed, it was about actions she took - actions which she knew were prohibited under terms of her employment, which she understood and agreed to. She has absolutely no leg to stand on.

I have to *shudder* sort of agree with Brain's first post on this one.

Just when the hell did accepting employment give one's employer carte blanche to poke their nose into your personal life and what you do off the clock? I know that many employers now search facebook and other sites when screening applicants (some even have the balls to ask for your screen names on all sites), and that is, IMO, horseshit.

As an employee, I sell a certain number of hours of my time per week to my employer. During that time, I will do whatever he wants, and do it the way he wants. That said, when that time is over, I can and will do whatever the hell I want with my life.

This whole deal with employers trying to control the personal lives of their employees makes me sick.


_____________________________

"MotherFUCKER!" is NOT a safeword!!"- Steel
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Profile   Post #: 74
RE: fired for being an atheist - 6/5/2010 12:58:14 AM   
WyldHrt


Posts: 6412
Joined: 6/5/2008
Status: offline
quote:

I'm with the Panda on this one. She knew from the start that she had to promote the religious ideals of the school. She signed a legal document saying she would do so, and then she reneged on the deal.

I lubs you Myo, but she said no such thing. That said, she told the school right off that she wasn't catholic.
quote:

As for funding - I don't know how it works in the US, but in the UK faith schools get public funding, but they also get funding from the church. In return for fewer financial demands on the government, they are allowed to make stipulations on the people they employ. But they are NOT allowed to discriminate on grounds of faith. Being an atheist/agnostic/whatever should not stop a person teaching in a faith school, as long as they disclose this at the interview.

She did, and it works different here.
quote:

Should the teacher be held responsible for what she does and says in her private life? Well, yes! Imagine you're a senior exec at Pepsi, and every night you go home and post on your facebook account that Pepsi is shit and you prefer Coca Cola. Would you expect repercussions? Of course you would! It's the same thing here.

Sorry, I don't buy that.
quote:

What it boils down to is that she was FULLY AWARE of the clauses in her contract, and she signed that contract of her own free will. She could have gone to a non-faith school, but she CHOSE to go to a faith school. Then she made public statements that broke the terms of her contract. She was an idiot.

Call it what you will. As for public, her facebook page wasn't (yet another reason for me to hate facebook). That said, she answered a frikkin internet poll on her facebook page by ticking a box. Are you serious?


_____________________________

"MotherFUCKER!" is NOT a safeword!!"- Steel
"We've had complaints about 'orgy noises'. This is not the neighborhood for that kind of thing"- PVE Cop

Resident "Hypnotic Eyes", "Cleavage" and "Toy Whore"
Subby Mafia, VAA Posse & Team Troll!

(in reply to myotherself)
Profile   Post #: 75
RE: fired for being an atheist - 6/5/2010 1:51:25 AM   
myotherself


Posts: 7157
Joined: 3/9/2006
From: The cold bit of the UK
Status: offline 		OK - this is my position as a former maths teacher at a faith school in the UK.

At the interview I was asked what my religious beliefs were. I said I was an athiest. They said that the terms and conditions of the job would include having to take part in religious activities with the students, that I would be expected to support the students in their belief, and not to discuss my atheism with the students. I agreed to all of that.

So I went to church with the kids, but did not take part in any communion. I accompanied them to daily prayers, but used the time for my own private contemplation. When a student asked me what my religious views were, I said they were not important - was WAS important was that they had their beliefs and I was there to support them.

Part of the deal was to provide a consistent role model to the students, in and out of school. It actually stated that in the contract, and is pretty standard for faith schools here in the UK. I doubt it's very different in the US. That meant that anything that I did that the children, their parents or the school could reasonably expect to find out about, then I had to take responsibility for. Facebook is a nightmare for finding out information about teachers - when I had my account under my real name, and I had it limited to friends only, I was horrified to find one of my students at school had downloaded a picture I had posted for 'friends only' and was using it as the screensaver on his mobile phone. I don't know how he got the pic (I didn't have many friends, and I knew all of those who were listed), but he did.

That didn't mean I had to stop doing what I did - it just meant I had to be more circumspect about doing it. I post on here, but very few people know my real name. Even fewer have seen a picture of me. I have a facebook account, but I don't have it under my real name. I don't have an issue with the teacher in the article doing what she did - it's her right to hold her (dis)beliefs. I just think she was phenomenally stupid to 'out' herself in such a public way.

As much as I would love it to be the case that private life=private life and working life=working life and never the twain shall meet, that's just not going to happen. She was a smart woman - she should have known that her publicly-aired views could have repercussions on her working life. She chose to take the chance, and she lost. It's a shame, but that's the way it goes.

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(in reply to WyldHrt)
Profile   Post #: 76
RE: fired for being an atheist - 6/5/2010 4:02:48 AM   
eyesopened


Posts: 2798
Joined: 6/12/2006
From: Tampa, FL
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: ThatDamnedPanda
quote:

ORIGINAL: Brain
No, as far as I'm concerned it's blackmail. She needed the job and the money and they don't have the right to blackmail a person telling them how to think just because a person needs the job.

They're not telling her how to think, they're telling her how to act. Which they are perfectly entitled to do. This isn't about what she believed, it was about actions she took - actions which she knew were prohibited under terms of her employment, which she understood and agreed to. She has absolutely no leg to stand on.


I'm with Panda on this.  It wasn't her Facebook profile the school asked her about.  It wasn't her being an atheist that led to her being fired.  It was her membership and activity on Atheist Nexus.  Once she began to advocate principles that went against church teaching.  Her advocacy got her fired, not her personal belief or non-belief.

Let's say I work for Company A and in the company policies they go over in new-hire orientation, that I sign where I agree to not engage in activities that would be detrimental to Company A.  Then let's say I agree to that but go home that same day an register on a website devoted to the proposed ban of Company A's product or service.  Not only do I join that website but I start posting opinions and articles that support the ban of Company A's product.

Should Company A be forced to keep me on the job?

_____________________________

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(in reply to ThatDamnedPanda)
Profile   Post #: 77
RE: fired for being an atheist - 6/5/2010 4:09:24 AM   
LadyAngelika


Posts: 8070
Joined: 7/4/2004
Status: offline 		~FR~

quote:

ORIGINAL: GotSteel

Abby Nurre worked as a math teacher at St. Edmonds Catholic School and was fired for joining a social networking site for nontheists.

"The main thing is that she stated she didn't believe in God," (spokeswoman for the Sioux City Diocese) Arlt said.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2010-05-29-fired28_ST_N.htm

I've heard claims recently that this sort of discrimination doesn't happen anymore but yeah it's still around.


That is awful. If she was fired for being a Christian, this would be the number one story on the news right now.

I don't go around with a banner saying I'm an atheist, but I do remember 13-14 years ago, when a conversation came up in the lunchroom, was asked what religion I was and I was atheist. The co-worker looked at me disgusted and said "I can't believe you would be an atheist. I actually thought you were a good person". I mentioned this to our supervisor, not a formal complaint, but in passing about how we could use a little more tolerance. My supervisor, who had no issue with me being an atheist apparently, told me that I should not expect to understood because I have such radical ideas.

I think one of the reasons why it is ok to atheist-bash is that people see atheism often as an aggressive reaction of God. To be Muslim or Jewish or Christian means that you were *born* into a faith so that can't be discriminated against. But to chose to reject your faith? That is sacrilegious!

- LA

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Profile   Post #: 78
RE: fired for being an atheist - 6/5/2010 6:29:13 AM   
LadyCimarron


Posts: 625
Joined: 12/29/2009
Status: offline 		It doesn't matter if it is public or private. It matters that the school is considered an extention of the church.

Chapter VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. It covers hiring, firing, promotion, compensation, benefits, training opportunities, and any other term, condition, or privilege of employment.

However, the same act gives churches and religious school exemption from this: Here it is copied directly from the civil rights act of 1964:
Title VII, Section 703(e)(2) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 specifies:
[I]t shall not be an unlawful employment practice for a school, college, university, or other educational institution or institution of learning to hire and employ employees of a particular religion if such school, college, university, or other educational institution or institution of learning is, in whole or in substantial part, owned, supported, controlled, or managed by a particular religion or by a particular religious corporation, association, or society, or if the curriculum of such school, college, university, or other educational institution or institution of learning is directed toward the propagation of a particular religion.
This provision exempts religious educational institutions, whether at the primary, secondary, or college level, from the prohibition of religious discrimination contained in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Significantly, this provision speaks generally of the right of religious educational institutions to discriminate on the basis of religion in the hiring of employees who will directly promote religious belief, such as teachers, as well as those who will not, such as clerical, custodial, and administrative personnel. The United States Supreme Court has ruled that this exemption does not violate the first amendment's “nonestablishment of religion” clause.6
 
 

(in reply to Brain)
Profile   Post #: 79
RE: fired for being an atheist - 6/5/2010 6:44:17 AM   
tazzygirl


Posts: 37833
Joined: 10/12/2007
Status: offline 		That is based upon religion. If the school discriminated based upon say color, they would be in a world of shit. Having said that, the school had no proof what she did in the privacy of her own home and computer followed into the classroom.

quote:

Administrative Law Judge Steven Wise ruled that Nurre was entitled to unemployment benefits because the school had failed to prove misconduct.

Wise said the Facebook survey and Nurre's posting to the atheists' forum "did not involve publicly advocating principles contrary to the teachings of the church and did not involve immoral conduct."

The Iowa Catholic Conference is an advocacy organization headed by the church's four Iowa bishops.


http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20100528/NEWS02/5280336/Iowa-Catholic-school-fires-teacher-after-Facebook-survey-indicates-she-doesn-t-believe-in-God

_____________________________

Telling me to take Midol wont help your butthurt.
RIP, my demon-child 5-16-11
Duchess of Dissent 1
Dont judge me because I sin differently than you.
If you want it sugar coated, dont ask me what i think! It would violate TOS.

(in reply to LadyCimarron)
Profile   Post #: 80
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