Monday, February 11, 2013

Catholic School Official Fired For Supporting Equality

On many occasions, we hear religious conservatives say they are afraid that if LGBT equality becomes the law, people who voice their support for "traditional values" will be ostracized, lose their jobs, and so on. Whether or not that is a legitimate fear I will not discuss here. What I will say is that it is utterly hypocritical given what has recently happened. Just today, Mike Moroski - an assistant principal at a Catholic high school in Ohio - was fired for voicing his support for marriage equality. On his blog he wrote the following:

Furthermore – I unabashedly believe that gay people SHOULD be allowed to marry. Ethically, morally and legally I believe this. I spend a lot of my life trying to live as a Christian example of love for others, and my formation at Catholic grade school, high school, 3 Catholic Universities and employment at 2 Catholic high schools has informed my conscience to believe that gay marriage is NOT something of which to be afraid.
Had this happened the other way around (i.e. getting fired from a public school for voicing support only for "traditional marriage"), you can bet that religious conservatives would be up in arms talking about freedom of religion and freedom of speech at the top of their lungs. But it is not the other way around, and so you can bet just as much that they will say nothing in defense of this man's freedom of religion and freedom of speech (I would love to be wrong about this). It is more likely that they will applaud the school for standing up for what they believe, which unfortunately translates to believing in discrimination and getting rid of anyone who dissents.

I applaud Moroski for standing up for what he believes: an end to discrimination and treating people as less than, even at the cost of his job in an economic environment such as this (he does have a second job as president of Choices Cafe). He as an example of how important it is for pro-equality Christians to stand up and be heard. He ended his blog post by saying:

Someone on my Facebook wall asked if my definition of “love” knew no bounds. I said that it did. Love of hurting others is where I draw the line – whether sexually, emotionally, physically, mentally – I do not accept the love of hurt. Outside that, if the love you share with someone else makes you the best version of yourself possible and you go out there in the world and share that love with others – have at it and be well.

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