Right Wing Nation

Do you remember the bong-sucking mouthbreather I mentioned a few months back?

The New York Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal discrimination complaint against a Catholic school, charging that it unjustly fired an unmarried teacher for being pregnant.

“I don’t understand how a religion that prides itself on forgiving and on valuing life could terminate me because I’m pregnant and choosing to have this baby,” Michelle McCusker said Monday at a news conference to announce the suit.

The 26-year-old preschool teacher was fired last month from St. Rose of Lima in Queens, according to published reports. The Diocese of Brooklyn also was named in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint.

“This is a difficult situation for every person involved, but the school had no choice but to follow the principles contained in the teachers’ personnel handbook,” diocese spokesman Frank DeRosa said in a statement.

The handbook says that each teacher must “convey the teachings of the Catholic faith by his or her words and actions.”

So this idiot — excuse me, unmarried idiot — got knocked up, decided to have the baby but remain unmarried, and because she’s an idiot, was shocked! I tell you! shocked! when the private Catholic school fired her. Well, we have another mouthbreather, just as stupid, and not surprisingly, university faculty.

The players:

Calvin College, a Dutch Reformed college in Michigan (note the name of the college)

Denise Isom, an “African-American education professor at Michigan’s Calvin College”

Our bong-sucker (the “African-American education professor at Michigan’s Calvin College”) was apparently too stupid to get the Calvin part of the name of the college that hired her, or inquire into what would be required of her as a faculty member of a Dutch Reformed college, since she wanted to join a Baptist church instead of a Dutch Reformed church as the Dutch Reformed college requires of its faculty.

And she’s whining about it.

But where this gets really pathetic is the reason for her whining. She apparently has no theological preference for this Baptist church she wants to join — and note that the college requirement is for theological reasons:

“For more than 130 years Calvin has been affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church, and we believe that Reformed theology and a Reformed world and life view and heritage have served the college well,” Calvin’s provost, Claudia Beversluis, said in a written statement.

Theology. Not “how you feel.” You’d think somebody who — one assumes — is a church-goer would understand the concept. But no, it seems the Dutch Reformed church is just too white for her. So we have yet another dolt who thinks that church is some kind of group therapy session:

“Each day, in formal and informal ways, I must address the issues of race and culture, often engaging in ways that carry a psychological, emotional, social, and physical cost,” Isom wrote in a letter requesting an exemption so that she could join a black Baptist church instead. “Though there are CRC churches and communities that are striving to reflect a multicultural vision in the church’s make-up and worship content, they are not ‘there’ yet. As a person who has long worked towards those ends in predominately white settings, I find myself at a place where, for emotional, social, and spiritual health, I need a place of worship that is already consistent with my culture and able to grapple with issues of race in ways which make it a respite, a re-charging and growing place for me, as opposed to another location where I must ‘work’ and where I am ‘other.’”

So she misses the boat entirely (not surprising), and wants a more PC, “multicultural” environment — wait, how, exactly, is a black church “multicultural”? But of course, she throws in research:

“As someone for whom research, scholarship, and service are centered around issues of social justice, race, culture, and gender, I need to be intimately tied to populations of people of color.” She added that she plans to conduct research on racialized gender identity among African-American children in a church setting.

So who’s keeping her from doing research at this Baptist church? Nobody. She’s speshul, no doubt because she’s an oppressed, disadvantaged, marginalized, disempowered “person of color.” She thinks she’s entitled to be exempted from the rules.

The college doesn’t agree:

Calvin’s Board of Trustees rejected Isom’s request in October. The board’s decision to decline the exemption request meant that, unless she joined a church in accordance with Calvin’s requirement (one of three faith-based requirements Calvin faculty must meet), her tenure-track appointment would be reverted to a term appointment that would expire at the end of 2008-9. Isom did not return requests for comment. Others contacted described the ball as now being in her court.

Actually, the ball was in her court when she took a position at a Dutch Reformed college. But she’s oppressed! She’s an official disadvantaged group! She’s entitled to speshul treatment!

I really like this provost:

“The history of Christian institutions of higher education in this country justifies caution in this area. Nearly all Christian colleges and universities that distanced themselves from their founding denominations and theological traditions eventually also drifted away from being Christian in any meaningful way.”

Beversluis continued: “This has been a difficult case for many at the college especially because we are committed to diversity in our students, staff and faculty…. But we also are committed to remaining a Reformed community. We believe that there is room in higher education for a wide variety of colleges, including secular and Christian, and that within the realm of Christian colleges there needs to be room for distinctively Catholic institutions, distinctively Baptist institutions, distinctively Reformed institutions and many others.”

Unsurprisingly, the idiots at Inside Higher Ed don’t get it any more than the bong-sucker does. The start the story with this irrelevancy:

“You have a white church and you have a Negro church. You have allowed segregation to creep into the doors of the church. How can such a division exist in the true Body of Christ? You must face the tragic fact that when you stand at 11:00 on Sunday morning to sing ‘All Hail the Power of Jesus Name’ and ‘Dear Lord and Father of all Mankind,’ you stand in the most segregated hour of Christian America.”
—Martin Luther King Jr.

It’s a theological issue, not a race issue. Idiots.

I wouldn’t have a problem with Calvin College if they didn’t have this policy on the books. After all, there are protestant (and atheist) faculty members teaching at Catholic universities. But they do have this rule on the books, and they did have it on the books when this idiot took the position.

If she doesn’t like it, she can get a position at another college.