Catholic School Fires Lesbian

For 19 years, Carla Hale had been the beloved physical education teacher and coach at a Catholic high school in Columbus, Ohio.  Everybody loved Carla --   her students, their parents, her faculty colleagues, her school’s administrators -- everybody. 

Then, a few weeks ago, Carla’s mother died, and Ms. Hale had the obituary include the name of her partner, whose name is Julie, and with whom she has shared a life for 10 years.  

But someone wrote an anonymous letter to the school informing it of the obituary -- and so the Catholic diocese fired her.

Why?

Diocese Bishop Frederick Campbell says it was because her “quasi-spousal relationship violates the moral laws of the Catholic Church.” 

Now it wasn’t because Carla is a homosexual.  It was because of the obit.

See, the Catholic Church does not condemn homosexuality, but it does condemn the  physical expression of homosexuality.  In the diocese’s view the obituary expressed that physicality by listing Julie’s name.  Thus, Carla was fired.

Columbus exploded in anger.  

Catholics, Protestants, gays, straights, atheists -- all marched on the school.  

Pro and con letters to the editor poured in to the Columbus Dispatch at a record or near-record volume.  

Hundreds of phone calls, some of them threatening, jammed the school’s telephone lines. 

More than 125,000 people signed an online petition to get her reinstated.  About 800 signed one that supported her firing.

But so far the ruling stands, and probably is headed to court.  

By the way, Ms. Hale is no floozie.  She is a 57-year-old Methodist whose daughter totally supports her mom’s lifestyle, which she never flouted but never hid.  She would very happily marry Julie if Ohio law allowed it.  

But it doesn’t, so she can’t, and therefore she stands convicted.   

Done in by an obit.

Amazing.   

-Skip

More Tea Party Nastiness

If it seems that Republicans spent all of last week trying to blame President Obama for everything except the weather, they didn’t.  Actually, their Tea Party congressmen were still trying to protect the rich while abandoning those who work for a living. 

First, House Republicans passed a bill that would blunt the impact of the Dodd-Frank financial-regulation law on banks and other financial services firms.  Democrats tried to at least protect the pensions of first responders and teachers, but the Republicans rejected the effort.

Democrats then tried to replace the GOP’s plan with a system that the Security and Exchange Commission already uses to regulate Wall Street, but the Republicans refused that, too.  

In short, Republicans once again protected the people who caused many of the problems that got our nation in the financial mess we’re in, and they left those who had nothing to do with causing the problems, specifically those who protect and educate us, swinging in the wind.   

And then, adding insult to injury, they passed a bill to repeal Obamacare.  It was the 37th time they have passed a bill to repeal or decimate Obamacare.  Thirty-seventh time!

None of these bills stands any chance of getting by the Senate, of course, and they stand even less a chance of getting by the president.  

So why do the Tea Party congresspersons insist on wasting time passing these useless bills while Americans everywhere wait with growing impatience for them to do what we elected them to do? 

I don’t know why.  I can’t even imagine why.  I wish that some Tea Party type would tell us why.

-Skip

Why I Am a Liberal

The older most people get, the more conservative they become.  With me, it’s the opposite.  The older I get, the more liberal I become.

I thank Fox News and Rush Limbaugh for much of that.  I listen to both of them whenever possible because I want to test my beliefs against the best conservatives have to offer.  

And if Fox News and Rush Limbaugh represent today’s conservatism, then conservatives offer nothing (unless, of course, you consider negativism something.)

They hate Obamacare, but they offer nothing to replace it -- other than the system we had before, which denied coverage to millions of deserving people.  They hate his plans to stimulate the economy, but they offer nothing to replace it -- other than an austerity plan that has failed everywhere it has been tried and most economists say cannot work.  Look at Europe. 

But most of all they hate liberals.

And what have liberals done to cause all that hatred?

Lawrence O’Donnell Jr. answered that quite clearly when he pointed out that liberals got women the right to vote, got African-Americans the right to vote, created Social Security and thus lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty, ended racial segregation, passed the Civil Rights Act, passed the Voting Rights Act, created Medicare, passed the Clean Air Act, passed the Clean Water Act.

And what did conservatives do?   

They opposed every one of those things.  Every One!

O’Donnell adds:  “So when you try to hurl that label at my feet,  “Liberal,”  as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, IT WON’T WORK, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor.”

Amen, brother O’Donnell.

-Skip

Another Bizarre Moment in South Carolina

South Carolina is known for bizarre politics, but tomorrow’s congressional election surely ranks among the bizarre-est. 

And the whole nation should pay attention, if not because of its national importance, then at least because of its bizarreness.   

Recapping: Voters in South Carolina’s First Congressional District will choose a congressman Tuesday to fill a vacancy.  Our heavily Republican legislature has skillfully gerrymandered the district into a bright crimson, and yet the polls show a political newcomer Democrat might win.

The race has national implications.  If a Democrat can win in this district, a Democrat can win anywhere.

The Republican choice is Mark Sanford, our disgraced former governor and a Tea Party darling.  He’s the one who told his staff, and his wife, that he was going hiking on the Appalachian Trail, then flew to Argentina  to be with his “soul mate” -- paying for  some of his trip with my money.  

Sanford later divorced his wife, got engaged to his paramour, paid the biggest fine for ethics violations in South Carolina history, filed for Congress, asked his ex-wife to direct his campaign (she declined), and trespassed at least once into her home despite a court order telling him to stay away. 

The Democrat candidate is Elizabeth Colbert Busch, a political newcomer best known as comedian Stephen Colbert’s sister but an accomplished woman in her own right.  After a disastrous marriage that produced three children, she put herself through college and rose to the top levels of a male-dominated maritime corporation.  She preaches a traditional Democrat philosophy.  

It’s not a matter of forgiving Sanford. He’s forgiven,  just not forgotten.  After all, he confessed because he got caught, not because of a sensitive conscience.  It’s a matter of fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

I’ll vote for Busch.

-Skip