Think About It...

There's a position going around that says that freedom of speech only protects you from being arrested by the government, but doesn't protect you from being forced out of your place of employment. Basically, a position of justifying the ostracism against people holding positions which are unpopular among the cultural elites.

As it currently stands, this view is used to justify the harassment of anyone who holds the position that marriage is, by nature, to be between one man and one woman with the openness to the possibility of children.

Now, I have written before that whether or not a person's public actions justify termination of employment depends entirely on the nature of the employer. To summarize, I said that when a place of employment is explicitly established as holding that certain public behaviors running against the beliefs of the company, the violation of said behavior can justify the termination of employment. But, when the controversial behavior does not run against the established values explicitly, termination is not justified.

For example, if a person thinks Catholicism is wrong and publicly denounces it, as much as I would find such a person offensive, I would not think such a position justifies him or her being fired from a job as a pizza delivery person.  However, if that person taught at a Catholic School, such a public position does justify termination because it would explicitly run afoul of the nature of the employer.

Likewise, when Brendan Eich was forced out of his position at Mozilla, his support for traditional marriage in no way violated the policy of the company, because it had nothing to do with the essence of what Mozilla is.

However, we now have a situation where a mob can agitate to get a person holding an unpopular view ostracized and believe such a position is justified because of the unproven position that thinking a thing is wrong means the person holding it must be a bigot.

Now the danger is: if those opposed to these values can legitimately force the ostracism of the person with unpopular views, then when political fortunes change, those who wind up on top will have the same right to ostracize those who are now on the bottom.

In other words, perhaps in 2020, those people who worked against the Defense of Marriage Act might suddenly find their employer pressuring them to resign... and they will be able to make no objection without sounding hypocritical.

The key thing to remember is this: If you are unwilling to let the tactics you use against your enemies be used by your enemies against you, that is a good sign that you are behaving hypocritically and your tactics are unjust.

Think about it...