BY GOD, IT'S MY RIGHT TO DISCRIMINATE AGAINST YOU!

[blueberryhill]

I agree that the school has a right to fire him but I don't like that they can. I don't like the unfairness of it.

I think religious organizations and politicians are struggling with how to reconcile their long-held stances against homosexuality in today's culture; struggling to stick to old conventional wisdom without losing the support of a growing percentage of the population who support fair and equal rights for gays.

Here's a story from a few weeks back about a Catholic School teacher who was fired for the exact opposite reason that Matthew Eledge is being let go.

SOMERVILLE, NJ, March 18, 2015.. Controversy struck when Patricia Jannuzzi, a theology teacher at Immaculata High School in Somerville, New Jersey, posted on Facebook that she opposed the legal arguments homosexual activists used to persuade the Supreme Court to redefine marriage.



Immaculata alumnus Scott Lyons sent a message to Jannuzzi, posting it on his own Facebook page. He admitted, “I found your classes and teaching during my time at IHS to be focused on love and acceptance.” But he said he now has “a husband and we have a child together.”

“[T]he words that you have been throwing out there are detrimental to the well-being and health of the youth that you inspire. I am certain that the Pope himself would take issue with your extreme point of view on homosexuality,” he said.

Soon began a movement for the Catholic school to silence its theology teacher.

“This kind of behavior needs to be stopped,” a petition drawn up on Change.org by Tom Robinson, a 2001 Immaculata graduate, says. “There is a line between believing in God and professing anti-homosexual sentiment to the public.”

“We are asking for action to be taken and hate speech to stop at Immaculata,” including a “school-wide Stop Hate Speech awareness day and sensativity [sic] training for students and teachers would go a long way,” the petition continues.

The high school responded in an official statement that “the opinions reflected in [Jannuzzi's] posts do not in any way represent the philosophy, mission, or student experience of this high school.”

Since the Catholic school's curriculum and identity are deeply “rooted in the Gospel message of Jesus Christ, the school takes this situation very seriously. As a result, we took immediate action and mandated that the teacher involved permanently deactivate her public Facebook page, which she has done.”

During the feeding frenzy, some of her students defended her as a teacher and as a human being.

But, ultimately, the school announced that Jannuzzi "has been put on administrative leave, effective immediately." The letter, signed by church pastor Monsignor Seamus Brennan and principal Jean Kline, professed its "intolerance of discriminatory behaviors of any kind."

"Please be assured that we will do everything we can in this trying time to make clear that the philosophy of Immaculata High School is one of inclusion rooted in the teachings of Jesus Christ," they wrote.
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In my opinion, Jannuzzi's firing is unfortunate too. Like Eledge, she was reportedly an excellent and committed teacher.

As I see it, she was simply exercising her first amendment rights off of school grounds.

While I personally disagree with her beliefs, I do not think her statements equate to hate speech.

Maybe her statements do not equate to hate, but I have to ask myself if you should be a teacher, if you are going to display ignorance about the issue of homosexuality. Teachers are under appreciated and underpaid, but i think her personal morality compass needs to stay out of the classroom...can she do an effective job of teaching youth with apparent ignorance of the subject matter? She needs to present what we know about human sexuality without her own personal bias if she is to be an effective teacher. This is different from the gay guy in Catholic school. He wasn't expressing opinion on this issue or teaching sexuality in the classroom. He just was a gay man....and because school doctrine clashed with his "lifestyle," he was terminated from his job. In summary, it is not the job of the teacher to instill specific morals, lifestyles, belief systems, etc into the minds of the young students. In this case, I think, she should have zipped her mouth.....as I should also do, at times....