Tag Archives: Intimidation

Commentary

Gay manager at Cisco Systems gets Dr. Frank Turek fired

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Dr. Mike Adams explains how a gay manager at Cisco Systems got Dr. Frank Turek fired for opposing same-sex marriage. Adams explains what happened in a letter addressed to the President of Cisco.

Excerpt:

I want to bring to your attention a recent decision made by your HR team that I think does not reflect your leadership of Cisco. Dr. Frank Turek was fired as a vendor for his political and religious views, even though those views were never mentioned or expressed during his work at Cisco.

[…]In 2008, Dr. Turek was hired by Cisco to design and conduct a leadership and teambuilding program for about fifty managers with your Remote Operations Services team. The program took about a year to conduct, during which he also conducted similar sessions for another business unit within Cisco. That training earned such high marks that in 2010 he was asked to design a similar program for about 200 managers within Global Technical Services. Ten separate eight-hour sessions were scheduled.

The morning after completing the seventh session earlier this year, a manager in that session —who was one of the better students in that class—phoned in a complaint. It had nothing to do with content of the course or how it was conducted. In fact, the manager commented that the course was “excellent” as did most who participated. His complaint regarded Dr. Turek’s political and religious views that were never mentioned during class, but that the manager learned by “googling” Dr. Turek after class.

The manager identified himself as gay and was upset that Dr. Turek had written this book providing evidence that maintaining our current marriage laws would be best for the country. Although the manager didn’t read the book, he said that the author’s view was inconsistent with “Cisco values” and could not be tolerated. (Dr. Turek is aware of this because he was in the room when his call came in.) The manager then contacted an experienced HR professional at Cisco who had Dr. Turek fired that day without ever speaking to him. The HR professional also commended the manager for “outing” Dr. Turek.

This firing had nothing to do with course content—the program earned very high marks from participants. It had nothing to do with budget constraints—the original contract was paid in full recently. A man was fired simply because of his personal political and religious beliefs—beliefs that are undoubtedly shared by thousands of your very large and diverse workforce.

Chastity vs sexual immorality

Let me tell you about the difference between chastity and sexual immorality. In my life, I have decided to be chaste, and what I have found is that there is a constant stream of negative judgments coming from the culture, the education system, and so forth disapproving of my decision to be chaste. But you will never see me trying to use the law to censor and coerce people who disagree with me. That is because I know that chastity is a virtue, and that chastity is necessary for a stable marriage – strictly on the peer-reviewed research.

No amount of disagreement from anti-chastity activists will make me feel bad about what I have decided to do, because I have the facts. I am not offended by incorrect views because it’s a factual question, and I’m right. And I also don’t want other people who disagree with me to celebrate my views, because they don’t hold my views. And I don’t mind that they disagree with me – my Christian worldview has a place for tolerance. Even God himself allows people to rebel against him – he doesn’t swoop down on sinners and demand obedience. He lets people decide for themselves. I want the right to voice my disagreement with others – I would not force anyone to agree with me and celebrate my views against their own will.

I think we can all see how sexual immorality is different from chastity. When people do something wrong that they know is wrong, they have a different response to being judged. Instead of ignoring the judgment as I do, they try to censor, coerce and overpower those who disagree with them. This can include the use of courts or even the use of force. The feeling of being offended is so strong for some sexually immoral people that any concerns about tolerating diverse opinions, or permitting disagreement goes out the window. Even to hear the words of disagreement is sometimes too much for a person in rebellion.

Consider this passage from Matthew 14:1-2:

1 At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus,

2and he said to his attendants, “This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead! That is why miraculous powers are at work in him.”

3 Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife,

4 for John had been saying to him: “It is not lawful for you to have her.”

5 Herod wanted to kill John, but he was afraid of the people, because they considered John a prophet.

6 On Herod’s birthday the daughter of Herodias danced for the guests and pleased Herod so much

7 that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked.

8 Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.”

9 The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he ordered that her request be granted

10 and had John beheaded in the prison.

11 His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who carried it to her mother.

12 John’s disciples came and took his body and buried it. Then they went and told Jesus.

Notice that this coercion can happen with all kinds of sexual immorality – in this case, incest. The desire to not be judged about the means of pursuing pleasure is strong. No one wants to hear about the potential harm they are causing. They just want to do it, and you just need to shut up and affirm them in their self-indulgence. Celebrate Anthony Weiner. Celebrate Bill Clinton. Celebrate Tiger Woods. Celebrate Elliot Spitzer. Celebrate Arnold Schwarzenegger. Celebrate John Edwards. OR ELSE. Very few people are brave enough to talk about the victims of this adult self-indulgence. And those who do will be taken under fire for it.

Same-sex marriage and coercion

And that leads me to the question that gay activists often ask supporters of traditional marriage: “how would allowing same-sex marriage hurt your marriage?”. And now we know the answer. Same-sex marriage would likely,  criminalize free speech that promotes traditional marriage over same-sex marriage, as it has in other countries with same-sex marriage, such as Canada. If you are a working husband, and you are responsible for a family, you will be under a constant threat of termination should your pro-marriage views become known to your colleagues and supervisors. Also, if you teach you children to favor traditional marriage, you may be persecuted by the state.

I would like to be able to provide for my family if I choose to marry, and I would like my children to favor traditional marriage over cohabitation, or any other arrangement, because traditional marriage is best for children who need a stable environment with two loving biological parents (if possible). But if it becomes the law that my view is “offensive” and “discriminatory”, then that would affect my marriage. Sometimes, I am very glad that I am not married, because getting married in a society that is offended by marriage takes a lot of courage. It seems to me that many Christians, especially the uninformed emotional ones who would rather read vampire fiction and Dan Brown than peer-reviewed research, prefer to redefine Christianity to mean “affirming destructive behavior so that you feel good and more people like you”.

Let Dr. Turek’s story be a lesson to all of you who prefer traditional marriage. Don’t allow your opinions on marriage to be linked to your true identity, because some sexually immoral people will try to separate you from your livelihood if they can. It’s no longer safe to express a preference for traditional marriage in this society. If you do it, you are taking chances. Just look at the vandalism and stalking of Prop 8 supporters. If you want children to grow up with a mother and a father in this society, then you are a marked target to those who put adult hedonism above the rights of children – including many Christians who enjoy singing and schmoozing in the church. Just this week I got an anguished e-mail from someone who blogs under his real name who is now in the cross-hairs for expressing his preference for traditional marriage in public.

Note: Comments to this post will be strictly filtered in accordance with legislation passed by the Obama administration limiting the free discussion of sexual morality, which many liberal Christians voted for in 2008.

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Commentary

Denyse O’Leary explains why theists are lacking courage

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From Uncommon Descent. Denyse O’Leary answers the question I posed in my previous post: why do otherwise intelligent, ambitious, qualified Christians shy away from answering questions about their faith?

Excerpt:

Christians confront a deep double standard, to which Darwinism has greatly contributed, by which the atheist position is considered the normal “secular”one and the Christian or other theist position a sort of disloyalty to the public good.

[…] Secular materialists use fashionable words like “skeptical” to describe themselves, when they are not skeptical at all. That confuses discourse and enables remarkably fatuous people to shape public opinion. While working on The Spiritual Brain, I confronted an astonishing fact: The secular materialist would accept any materialist premise, no matter how implausible, to support his view. In fact, I sometimes ask, is there any proposition fronted in the name of, say, Darwinism (as I did here, that you regard as absurd? I often get blank looks or protests that Darwinism is science and there are no such propositions, and an immediate change of subject. Well, when we hear that, at least we know who we are dealing with.

The Christian/theist labours under no such disability. He can accept a materialist explanation when it fits the facts, but not otherwise. But by acting this way, he becomes – in the eyes of the secular atheist – untrustworthy. He can’t be relied on to just shout the party line.

The upshot is that, the Christian risks more, speaking out, and is far more responsible for the need to have intelligent ideas. It’s much safer for Christians to bury themselves in fluffy Christian books and sweat off the flab in Christian weight loss programs, and little by little accommodate themselves to the reigning orthodoxy. After a couple of decades, they don’t even know.

So basically, I understand her to say that the the “skeptics” are actually so committed to the presupposition of naturalism that they are aggressive and close-minded. Their materialism is functioning as a sort of fundamentalism, much like you would find with Islamic radicals. A Christian can look at some new phenomenon in nature and ask the question: is it explained by materialism or is an intelligence required? But the materialist has to presume the answer before looking at the evidence – so they are close-minded to evidence, because of their non-scientific philosophy of materialism.

There are two ways to have a discussion about nature. You can ask a question and then compare evidence for various hypotheses. That’s the non-fundamentalist approach. That’s the approach used by Christians. The naturalist approach is to not allow questions to be asked and to attack the character of the person asking the question. That’s the fundamentalist approach.

And that’s where the fear and intimidation comes in. Who wants to debate with someone who is not open to having their religious pre-supposition validated against the evidence? You’re just going to get fired, censored, arrested or worse. That’s the way it is with fundamentalists like naturalist extremists and Islamic extremists. All kinds of nastiness to others is possible when you are a true believer. Denyse’s point is that the intimidation drives theists to avoid these discussions, and that leads to their decision to just focus on other things like careers and weight loss and fluff.

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News

How would allowing gays to marry affect your life?

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Here’s a post from Legal Insurrection, a prominent law blog.

Excerpt:

King & Spalding has withdrawn from representing the House of Representatives with regard to the Defense of Marriage Act.  King & Spalding was hired after the Obama administration abruptly — and disingenuously — changed its legal position recently.

The attempts to intimidate, both politically and sometimes physically, supporters of traditional marriage are nothing new.

The strategy is to define the traditional marriage view as bigotry on par with racism.  Once you accept that premise, then everything else follows and is justified.  Even expressing a legal view that there is no federal constitutional right to same sex marriage — a view expressed under oath by Elena Kagan — now constitutes hate speech.

There were numerous boycotts of businesses owned by people who supported Prop. 8 in California, including a boycott organized by an association of law professors.

Taking it one step further, there was a widespread campaign to demonize and boycott Mormon-owned businesses in the wake of Prop. 8 in California…

[…]Now the intimidation has moved beyond political supporters of Prop. 8 and Mormons, and into an attempt to deprive pro-traditional marriage groups of their counsel of choice.  As Jennifer Rubin points out (via John Hinderaker), the attempt to intimidate lawyers into not representing pro-traditional marriage clients is part of a deliberate strategy, not a haphazard reaction.

[…]Would such lawyers and staff now be afraid to express their views on the subject, fearing a backlash against their individual careers much as King & Spaulding feared a backlash?  If representing the pro-traditional marriage view is unacceptable for the firm, would there be a hostile work environment for such people?

Dennis Prager wrote more about how same-sex marriage affects society back in 2008.

Excerpt:

Outside of the privacy of their homes, young girls will be discouraged from imagining one day marrying their prince charming — to do so would be declared “heterosexist,” morally equivalent to racist. Rather, they will be told to imagine a prince or a princess. Schoolbooks will not be allowed to describe marriage in male-female ways alone. Little girls will be asked by other girls and by teachers if they want one day to marry a man or a woman.

The sexual confusion that same-sex marriage will create among young people is not fully measurable. Suffice it to say that, contrary to the sexual know-nothings who believe that sexual orientation is fixed from birth and permanent, the fact is that sexual orientation is more of a continuum that ranges from exclusive heterosexuality to exclusive homosexuality. Much of humanity — especially females — can enjoy homosexual sex. It is up to society to channel polymorphous human sexuality into an exclusively heterosexual direction — until now, accomplished through marriage. But that of course is “heterosexism,” a bigoted preference for man-woman erotic love, and therefore to be extirpated from society.

Any advocacy of man-woman marriage alone will be regarded morally as hate speech, and shortly thereafter it will be deemed so in law.

Companies that advertise engagement rings will have to show a man putting a ring on a man’s finger — if they show only women fingers, they will be boycotted just as a company having racist ads would be now.

Films that only show man-woman married couples will be regarded as antisocial and as morally irresponsible as films that show people smoking have become.

Traditional Jews and Christians — i.e. those who believe in a divine scripture — will be marginalized. Already Catholic groups in Massachusetts have abandoned adoption work since they will only allow a child to be adopted by a married couple as the Bible defines it — a man and a woman.

Anyone who advocates marriage between a man and a woman will be morally regarded the same as racist. And soon it will be a hate crime.

Indeed — and this is the ultimate goal of many of the same-sex marriage activists — the terms “male” and “female,” “man” and “woman” will gradually lose their significance. They already are. On the intellectual and cultural left, “male” and “female” are deemed social constructs that have little meaning. That is why same-sex marriage advocates argue that children have no need for both a mother and a father — the sexes are interchangeable. Whatever a father can do a second mother can do. Whatever a mother can do, a second father can do. Genitalia are the only real differences between the sexes, and even they can be switched at will.

And what will happen after divorce — which presumably will occur at the same rates as heterosexual divorce? A boy raised by two lesbian mothers who divorce and remarry will then have four mothers and no father.

We have entered something beyond Huxley’s “Brave New World.”… Our children and their children will pay the price.

Check out this vandalism at a Catholic church by supporters of same-sex marriage. The vandalism says “where is the love?” I don’t think that the vandals showed much love for those who disagree with same-sex marriage, though. And sometimes the consequences for disagreement can be much worse than vandalism.  It can mean legal consequences, sensitivity indoctrination, vandalism, or even violence. What’s sad is that the well-meaning young leftists, who think what they are doing is compassionate, are actually encouraging this coercion.

How would allowing gays to marry affect your life?

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