There’s a petition you can sign urging Marian High School to unfire Barbara Webb.
Barb Webb was recently forced to resign as a teacher at Marian High School in Michigan because she is pregnant and starting a family with her female partner. Webb was a well-loved teacher at the school – having been a chemistry teacher and volley ball coach for 9 years. There has been outrage from students, parents and alumni at a school that prides itself in ‘enabling young women to value human diversity and live responsible lives and inspiring its students to ‘Empower, Explore, Excel’
Webb told school officials that she was pregnant and hoped to work out some kind of maternity leave arrangement (or leave of absence) as her contract prohibited her from being public with anything that is contrary to Catholic doctrine. Marian denied her the request for leave. She was asked to resign or her employment would be terminated.
We call on Marian High School and Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) to rethink their policies and start supporting LGBT staff and students.
Love is Love in all its forms – at a time when Barb Webb should be preparing for motherhood and the beautiful journey starting a family – we want to show our support and solidarity and ask Marian High School to never make this mistake again. Help Marian make the right decision. This is a human rights issue and every act of justice that we take can collectively get us one step closer to equality!
Pope Francis: “A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: “Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?” We must always consider the person. September 2013.
That answer in the quote at the end feels so wishy-washy to me >_<
While I agree that the school was (ethically) wrong to fire her, I don’t have any expectation that she’ll get rehired. Her employer — the Catholic Church (the institution) — is in its essence authoritarian, and maintaining its authority and the principle of absolute unquestioning obedience is far more important to them than the welfare (spiritual or otherwise) of its parishioners. If they gave in, it would set a precedent and to people expecting it to give in on other things. They can overlook disobedience as long as they can pretend they weren’t aware of it, but once they’ve acted, like any bully, they can’t back down without losing face.
Church logic: Abortions are evil because the church loves babies, unless their mothers are lesbians. Then it is moral to take away the moms’ ability to earn a living so that the baby will grow up in poverty.
This is the kind of BS that springs to mind when people mention Pascal’s wager. The idea that we should make life decisions based on a worst case scenario, regardless of its likelihood to ever occur, has always struck me as one of the stupidest arguments a person could utter. I’ve never yet heard a compelling explanation of the harm done by same-sex couples. It’s a question I often ask and every answer I’ve ever received breaks down to either “God doesn’t like it” or some bullshit, oft-repeated “studies show…” assertion that is easily debunked with 3 minutes of research. Sometimes I just want yell, “What if YOU’RE wrong?” Before you spend your life judging other people, spewing hate, ruining lives, and trying to inflict your inhumane beliefs others, shouldn’t you be at least a little concerned with whether your beliefs are true?
@1, I’m with ya, that’s a Jesuitical dodge if ever I’ve seen one.
There were a bunch of terrific points in the decision of the Reagan-appointed judge (remember when conservatives were vaguely sensible sometimes???) in the Wisconsin/Indiana case this week, well worth the read, but one comes to mind: (I paraphrase) “if efforts to convert homosexuals to heterosexuality have proven such a dismal failure over the years, despite all the public benefits of such a conversion, why is there such a fear that the reverse is so feasible, should we allow homosexuals to marry?” Kids really won’t decide to become gay because a teacher they admire is. It’s so shockingly obvious that it shouldn’t need saying.
And yet……here we are…