And another victory for “tolerance”;
Campaign records show Scott Eckern contributed $1,000 to a campaign supporting Proposition 8, which wrote a ban on same-sex marriages into the California state Constitution.
Eckern, a 25-year veteran of the company, issued an online apology through the theater publication, Playbill. He is the company’s chief operating officer and has been its artistic director since 2002.
Eckern resigned his position today.
More on “the new blacklist” – “The bullies have published the names of other contributors, too. Welcome to 1984 — 24 years late.”
h/t Dwayne
Make that K Stricker–though Striker seems an apt name for someone who declines to substantially engage in the issue under consideration.
I was in California last week and saw a protest against the election outcome. Protesting is stupid. They can come up with another amendment to overturn Prop 8 and put it back to the people in the next election cycle.
The difference between civil unions and marriage is that a civil union dissolves at the border of whatever government issues it, marriage does not.
So unless civil unions are made portable, as marriages are, they are not separate but equal.
I’m gay and got married, in Ontario. I also think the fact that people were going to boycott the theater based on this man’s political support is very anti-American. I think he should not have resigned. He has every right to support causes that follow his beliefs. By resigning, he has given the impression that he did something very wrong.
I stand corrected lookout, thanks!
🙂
…moot…moot… moot… moot…
Understood TJ but it’s not all gay folks who are like this.
Perhaps it is those that came from hard-lined families that turn on traditional marriage to get back at their parents. BUT that’s just my theory.
I know a few gays who were supported in their family’s of origin and they’re not the militant ones. This is purely what I have observed of course. One that I know for sure wasn’t supported is way off on the extreme end of things now.
I also believe anyone can make a great parent, gay or otherwise. Same as just because a woman or man is the biological parent doesn’t make them a good parent. That comes from within.
k.stricker – you didn’t answer my question, which was not the definition of ‘functional’ but who sets and ensures compliance with the normative standards for such a building?
After all, X-person could say that having a few bricks fall off is ‘trivial’ while Y-person would see this as suggestive of basic flaws. Who sets the standards? Who enforces them?
Your definition of libertarianism as ‘the outlawing of coercive force’ is vague. What does ‘coercive force’ mean? After all, fining someone for providing substandard concrete is an aspect of a regulatory body, which I deem necessary in a society. Are such fines ‘coercive force’?
Who decides when and if the pursuit of one’s own ends infringes or does not infringe on someone else? And if I AM infringing on someone else’s actions, then, who will stop me???? Just ‘arbitration’? Heck, each and every time I throw my garbage on my neighbour’s lawn, does that involve arbitration?
Do you know what is missing in your hypothetical society? The rule of law. You leave everything up to the personal intention of the individuals. Such a solipsistic focus means that the ‘Biggest Bully’ to so speak, wins. But the rule of law is a communal creation, a set of standards and normative behaviour by which a community decides to live. Your libertarianism has no such communal base; it’s just a bunch of people, each focused on themselves – and the strongest bully and loudest voice wins.
Frankly, such a collection of people would rapidly descend to gang-warfare – which is also focused on ‘individual agendas’. Without a collective rule of law, and a set of sanctions for breaching these rules – you don’t have a viable chance of any individual freedom.
“If you fire someone without just cause and they kno their rites they will sue your ass off.”
I very much doubt if an employee were given the prescribed notice and/or severance pay they would get away with it. Yes, cause *is* needed to fire someone without notice/severance. That isn’t what we’re talking about here at all, is it? Some employers do try to get away with not paying severance, and they do get sued.
“also every employee/employer relationship can be viewed as a (verbal) contract, and verbal contracts carry the same “strength” as written contracts, that one I tested in court myself (without a lawyer) and won”
Good.
“and as to being a libertarian, maybe you ment liberaltarian”
Yes, get out the pitchforks. I don’t see non-state sanctioned action against a conservative as something to whine about.
Some of you seem to think there should be a law preventing someone from being fired for expressing socially conservative values, but at the same time it’s an injustice when someone gets hauled before an HRC for not wanting to work with someone due to their conservative values. Bunch of hypocrites.
“Your libertarianism has no such communal base; it’s just a bunch of people, each focused on themselves – and the strongest bully and loudest voice wins.”
I’ve assured you that isn’t the case. Your refusal to accept that doesn’t constitute a valid argument. If that’s all you have to offer, I’ll take my leave of this discussion.
“Non answer, K Striker: we’re talking, among other public servants, fine public school teachers, who, despite the Charter rights they’re supposed to possess, are punished for their political views, which have no bearing whatsoever on their teaching performance.”
No, we’re talking about Scott Eckern, an artistic director who resigned from a theatre company. Which being a private company had every right to terminate his employment if they felt the need to. Any injustices put upon the socially conservative right by the state have no bearing on this topic.
Yes, it is the rule of law.
The ten commandments is as simple as it gets. Ten simple, “thou shalt nots,” that have evolved into many thousands of police enforced laws.
The more laws, the bigger the government to administer the laws.
Libertarianism is based on a non-enforced, altruistic personal code, where one is free to do whatever they want as long as they don’t hurt somebody else while doing so.
A pure enough idea, at the same time, naive. And therefore, not Conservative.
Simple law has grown fat, ugly and unruly – fed by the vagrancies of political mischief, greed and rampant leftist liberalism.
The conundrum of mankind remains tribalism.
When you eat your smarties, do you eat the red ones last?
Disagree with you ldd on your last point.
If a baby is up for adoption and a choice exists between putting the baby in a good home with a mother and father, or an equally good home with gay parents, I’d vote for the mother and father every time.
The fact that some heterosexual couples make lousy parents (some do, agreed) is just a distraction from the main argument.
All else being equal there’s no logical reason whatsoever that gay parents should be considered more or even equally suitable for children.
Of course the gay rights crowd will disagree vehemently with that view, but that’s no surprise. In their view two dads are just as good as a dad and a mother.
I do see your point TJ, ideally the child should have both the mother and father because that is the usual and (use to be the only way) they came forth.
I just don’t feel it’s right to deny anyone who wants to adopt a child – just because they are gay.
So say we have a gay couple.
They know that statistically their adopted child is likely ‘straight’ they’ll be supportive and encouraging of this as well, and I’m sure they do if they truly love that child for WHO that child is.
Because wouldn’t a gay parent know only too well the damage done when sexual orientation is denied?
I guess the reason I am stating this is because I and my x at one point discussed who should, in the unlikely event of both our untimely deaths, our child be entrusted to.
AND yep, his gay sister was my choice.
She was the most stable of all our choices, even though other siblings had the traditional marriages they were pretty dysfunctional IMHO.
She, my x-sister-in law, would have done a fantastic job had she been called on to do so.
K Stricker (KS) can’t see the forest for the trees.
So, (whatever good it might do), SK, listen up: the parallel between the sorry fate of Scott Eckern and teachers (and other government paid professionals, like Ontario’s doctors) who come out of the closet for not toeing the homosexual party line—which has had no effect on their job performance for the work they were hired to do (remember, Mr. Eckern’s fine reputation and good relationships on the job for 25 YEARS have been shoved aside and have been counted for nothing)—is pretty much one on one: ostracization, ridicule, shunning, and, finally, under coercion and extreme provocation, resignation—for no other reason than that person disagrees with PC orthodoxy and has had the audacity to exercise his rights to say so and use the democratic process to effect change—or not.
(Thanks, Kyla, for your input: ’always good to hear from you. But I think the poisonous environment Mr. Eckern has been subjected to made his resignation a foregone—and altogether calculated—conclusion. With the bullies in charge, can you imagine the hell his work space has become?)
KS seems to be invincibly intolerant of fair argument. I’ve provided more here. So did ET when she wrote, “Your libertarianism has no such communal base; it’s just a bunch of people, each focused on themselves – and the strongest bully and loudest voice wins.” (C.S. Lewis’s fine, and prophetic, book, The Abolition of Man, outlines society’s descent to this sorry state.)
That’s what we’re seeing in Mr. Eckern’s and thousands of other cases, especially to do with observant religious believers, usually Christian. (Have any Muslims ever been disciplined—school boards have, and use, re-education sessions, fines, and relocation—for traditionalist views on hot topics?) As I’ve said before, I cannot credit KS with being a libertarian, as this person seems altogether tolerant of the tyranny of the PC jackboots in the workplace, exercised both by the state and private institutions. I see the exercise of such arbitrary, coercive, and punitive powers—aka witch hunts—quite unacceptable. KS’s apparent acquiescence to such measures sure doesn’t look like libertarianism to me.
P.S., ldd – You’re welcome!
irwin daisy,
“Libertarianism is based on a non-enforced, altruistic personal code, where one is free to do whatever they want as long as they don’t hurt somebody else while doing so.”
I would argue it is neither non-enforced nor altrusitic. And yes, it is not conservative.
You know what’s even simpler than ten commandments? Remove the ones where someone else isn’t getting hurt. Then you have 5 or so commandments (depending on your particular flavour of religion of course.) and they somewhat resemble natural law. These are the ones to be enforced. That does not preclude you from making a personal choice to follow the other five. That is the only way to maximize freedom of conscience.
lookout,
“C.S. Lewis’s fine, and prophetic, book, The Abolition of Man, outlines society’s descent to this sorry state.”
Kind of irrelevant to me. I’m a minarchist. Many libertarians *are* anarcho-capitalists, but take up that point with them. Believing an employer should not legally have to justify terminating an employee itself doesn’t make me an anarchist. You can stop pretending it does.
“I see the exercise of such arbitrary, coercive, and punitive powers—aka witch hunts—quite unacceptable.”
Look at this case again. The “witch-hunt” was caused by the government’s involvement. If the donor list was kept private one of two things could have happened:
1. He could have privately supported the cause of his choice and wisely not let his colleagues (in an industry dominated by the left) know about it.
2. He could have let his colleagues know about his preferences on his own terms. I’m sure his reasoning might have been a little more palatable to them coming from him, rather than coming from a radical witch-hunt group scouring donor lists for potential victims.
I posit that government meddling is at fault here as much as it is with public employees. The government exposed him to the witch hunt. There’s absolutely nothing that isn’t libertarian about that.
The problem with k. stricker’s perspective is that he naively focuses on an amorphous agency, which he does not describe or understand, The Government, as an Evil Force. This, he feels, is the cause of all these problems.
He hasn’t answered any of my questions about the necessity for a communal base; he insists that his view does indeed have such a base but doesn’t explain what it is and how it operates.
What else is a communal base other than ‘the government’? As such, it functions within a communally created set of laws, which assert their force by sanctions.
Now, where in K. Stricker’s outline, does he have any communal agency? If it exists, as he says it does, then, he ought to explain it instead of reducing his posts to an argument that a ‘private person can do what he wants’ and in this example, doesn’t have to legally justify firing an employee because, according to KS, such justification smacks of ‘government interference’.
No, it doesn’t. It adheres to the rule of law, which is a communal acknowledgment of responsibilities we owe to each other.
Where is the commune in K stricker’s world?
I have yet to hear a good reason how two guys getting married in downtown Vancouver effects my “traditional” marriage.
I was initially for civil union only but as the arguement went on I was not conviced of my first opinion.
If somebody has a good reason I would be happy to hear it
There are no responsibilities we owe to each other aside from not harming each other. This government enforces that responsibility in much the same way it does today. The set of laws it runs by is minimal, and anything not fundamental to keeping peace which doesn’t involve harming or coercing one other (by threat of harm) is decided more efficiently by the free market.
Saying you’re not going to buy a theatre ticket because you disagree with the views of an employee of the theatre might seem to be in bad taste, but it isn’t a matter of coercive force, because no one is legally compelled to buy a ticket in the first place. The business either takes a stand and risks pissing some customers off (as in the Globe & Mail / Margaret Wente) or they fire the employee and risk alienating different customers. It seems the theatre/employee made an irrational decision here given that over 50% of Californians who voted support the same views, but they may also have been taking the demographics of their audience into account.
The government is not an evil force, it is a vicious force which needs to be restrained so it remains a servant to the people, rather than the master.
As an aside, can you think of a legitimate reason the government should have to publicly publish the name and occupation of donors to anything? Is there any other reason for these donor lists to exist aside from witch hunts?
Hey there, Right of centre, I guess you don’t read/listen to/watch the right information: The Star and other MSM are all on the homosexual team.
FYI, off the top of my head: Homosexual “marriage” devalues the currency of traditional marriage: it’s like saying a real diamond and a fake one, which, after all, look identical on the surface, are worth the same. They aren’t. (Traditional marriage—one man, one woman, who produce offspring—are the bedrock upon which healthy societies are built. Take a serious look at the pathologies unleashed by the sexual revolution over the last 40 years. Not a pretty picture.)
Declaring common law relationships equal to marriage has been a disaster. By putting them on an equal footing, the inferior model was given a respectability it didn’t have before and, therefore, we have had many more common law relationships. Guess what? Women in common law relationships are four and a half times more likely to be physically abused (Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics) than their married sisters; and their children are at huge risk at the hands of the next live-in boyfriend(s). (Biological fathers are far less likely to abuse their children than are unrelated males in the home, who wish the sexual favours of the mother.)
It’s also well known that homosexual relationships are hot beds of abuse and are not noted for their longevity. Family breakup and the subsequent parade of non related adults living with the children living in these relationships (as well as the open sexualisation often present in homosexual households) put the children at serious, ongoing risk.
Another point: homosexuals won the legal “right” to marriage by simply asserting it as a Charter right. The courts capitulated and said, “OK”. That capitulation has opened the door for any other group of people—Muslim, a threesome, etc.—to assert their “right” to live in a conjugal relationship and have it declared “marriage”. On what grounds can the courts refuse?
I hope this provides you with some answers to your question.
Re K Stricker: as this person seems incapable of processing plain English, I’ll rest my case, as stated.
P.S. If a government employee were to express in public the facts that I just have, the “Equity”—read enforced political correctness—policies of the workplace would seriously curtail that employee’s freedoms. Sanctions would be enforced. Some freedoms we Canadians have! (Our freedoms were actually more protected before the Charter, which is now used as a bludgeon by certain groups to keep their political opponents in line. ’Sounds like totalitarianism to me.)
re: lookout
This person seems incapable of drawing a distinction between government enforced “equity” on government employees, and the business decisions of a private firm. The private firm wasn’t enforcing political correctness, the private firm was responding to an unfortunate situation brought about by government pandering to people who want ‘transparency’ in donations (i.e. People who want a list from which to start a witch hunt. I challenge you to give me any other reason this should not be kept private.)
“Our freedoms were actually more protected before the Charter, which is now used as a bludgeon by certain groups to keep their political opponents in line. ’Sounds like totalitarianism to me.”
Well that sounds like you’re agreeing with me. It’s a shame you apparently “don’t have a sufficient grasp of the English language” to realize it.
k. stricker – the phrase’ not harming one another’ is so vague as to be meaningless. What does ‘harm’ actually mean? Physical, emotional, financial? And who determines the nature and extent of this harm? Your vague terminology doesn’t address these issues.
How does the free market decide an issue of ‘harm’ which has nothing to do with the market? Say, for example, that I’m in the habit of dumping my garbage on my neighbour’s lawn. How does the free market enter into this?
The term ‘evil’ and ‘vicious’ are rather interchangeable. The effect of a vicious action, after all, is an evil result.
Yes, I can think of a legitimate reason for the govt to publish donors lists. For example, Toronto city Councillors are heavily embedded within the agendas of the Unions, which seek high wages for little work, prevent competitive contract bids, and so on. These unions donate money and in-kind work to the election campaigns of these councillors. So, making the list of donors to a campaign public shows the extent of ‘favours owed’ by these same ‘government officials’.
I certainly agree with you that government ought to be a servant of the people, and not the other way around, but I think that your ideas are illformed and naive.
P.S., Right of centre
You, the MSM, the homosexual lobby and its myriad camp followers, who should know better, frame the marriage question from the perspective that adult sexual license takes precedence over the needs of children.
And how are our kids doing? Think about it.
“So, making the list of donors to a campaign public shows the extent of ‘favours owed’ by these same ‘government officials’.”
Yes, in the case of a politician the left wants the list so they can criticize politicians for taking donations from oil companies, and the right wants them so they can criticize politicians for taking donations from unions. Supporting a politician isn’t necessarily endorsing a particular view, mind you.
In the case of a campaign for a specific proposition, there are no politicians to blame for the ultimate decision, so who else is the left (or the right in some other case) going to criticize other than individual supporters? Say the situation were reversed, and a prominent person in a right wing dominated industry (talk radio?) was found to have donated $1000 against proposition 8. Would there be a radical group of Christians up in arms over it? Probably. Would the HRCs then try to step in to prevent him from being fired. Probably.
And that’s the problem. The fact that the government has a double standard about what is an acceptable reason for termination of employment. It would be better for them to stay out of the issue altogether.
Ldd, if you allow gay couples to get “married”, and adopt kids, and so forth, you’re basically saying anything goes. Polygamy and other arrangements are really just a short step from gay marriage.
And those of us who believe in the institution of traditional marriage know full well that the real motivation of the gay lobby is to undermine said institution. In their view we represent an old fashioned, backward concept.
The traditional family is a pretty resilient entity, and so gays have realized that the only way they can change it is to get inside.
And once you decree that a traditional family is in every way equal to a family with gay parents, then the door opens for the government to indoctrinate our kids in kindergarten etc. as has already started to happen.
Those of us who are opposed to gay marriage know what it really represents.
I have nothing against gays, but I do believe some institutions are more useful and important in society than others. Unfortunately in today’s word we have grown so weak and so afraid to offend, that we prefer to accept them all rather than rank them.
Which ever side of the coin is considered: firing people based on incompatible beliefs with the employer or protecting them from employer intolerance and privacy invasion one thing must be certain or it will fail from inconsistency: treat everyone to the same standard.
If an openly gay teacher can access kids in a Christian school then why can’t a traditional marriage supporter run a theatre where G&L’s sell their lifestyle through entertainment? Conversely, if a gay teacher can be fired from a Christian school why would there be a problem with axing a theatre chief operator with conflicting views about the content of their productions?
Keep it simple is my belief – one paint brush for all. One way or another people will be offended – but living with that is far better than hypocrisy.
P.S. If I’m going to be labeled “ill-informed” or “naive” for having more faith in humanity than others would deem wise, that is a badge I will wear with honor.
Well said, TJ. Thanks.
Right of centre (Roc), what are your thoughts, now that “I [Roc] have yet to hear a good reason how two guys getting married in downtown Vancouver effects [sic] my ‘traditional’ marriage” has been addressed?
It’s no surprise that your perspective is narrowly framed around “MY ‘traditional’ marriage” (emphasis mine). As TJ and I have posited, the perspective that needs to be considered goes way beyond the narrow confines of the atomistic, adult self.
And, back to the original theme of this thread, should people like TJ and I be dismissed from our livelihoods because our point of view—denigrated out of hand by far too many because it’s not allowed to be expressed without severe sanctions to those who speak out—doesn’t fit state and “polite society” approved propaganda?
I’ve always believed that freedom of expression meant that ALL citizens were free to advance competing views without favour or fear. We now have the situation where those who, in good conscience, disapprove of homosexual “marriage” are treated with the utmost contempt and have seen their freedoms drastically truncated.
f–k the perverts. oh hell they would like that.
The guy’s public political positions, and political contributions are public, were hurting the business he was working for. They have every right to fire him, just like the movie studios had every right to blacklist communists in the 50s. Should his theatre go bankrupt to protect him?
Remember, freedom of speech does not protect you from private repercussions. There is nobody here who cannot lose their job for saying something outrageously stupid. This guy works in a business with a LOT of homosexuals, the Dixie Chicks played to the NASCAR crowd, and I bet there are a lot of people here who have abandoned writers, actors and other artists for their outspoken opinions.
I hear you, fozzy. But, what about the tolerance, diversity, and respect the homosexual community demanded from everyone with whom they disagreed?
Now that they’re on top, so to speak, where did all this tolerance, diversity, and respect go?
I’ve noticed, that as far as the homosexual agenda goes, the traffic is all one way–their way, or else.
Well Sorry for not getting back to you Lookout I was busy with having a life and such.
I have looked at your reasons and very few of them are anything but signs of a bigot.
Your generalizations of an entire group of people are pathetic and like I mentioned I have yet to see a truly valid reason
Your points are factless opinion and nothing more.
If concern over the “slippery slope” were the real motive behind this argument, the advocate of this line of reasoning would be equally vocal about the fact that today, even as you read this, convicted murderers, child molesters, known pedophiles, drug pushers, pimps, black market arms dealers, etc., are quite free to marry, and are doing so. Where’s the outrage? Of course there isn’t any, and that lack of outrage betrays their real motives. This is an anti-gay issue and not a pro marriage issue.
Prove your point, Right of centre, and forget the name calling.