Posted on 12/07/2009 3:03:08 PM PST by Fido969
Grard was fired by Bill Thompson, editor of the Sentinel and its sister paper the Kennebec Journal in Augusta, shortly after the Nov. 3 election in which Maine voters repealed a same-sex marriage law approved by the Legislature. Grard said he arrived at work the morning after the vote to find an e-mailed press release from the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, D.C., that blamed the outcome of the balloting on hatred of gays.
Grard, who said he’d gotten no sleep the night before, used his own e-mail to send a response. “They said the Yes-on-1 people were haters. I’m a Christian. I take offense at that,” he said. “I e-mailed them back and said basically, ‘We’re not the ones doing the hating. You’re the ones doing the hating.’
One week later, he was summoned to Thompson’s office. He was told that Trevor Thomas, deputy communications director of the Human Rights Campaign, had Googled his name, discovered he was a reporter, and was demanding Grard be fired. According to Grard, Thompson said, “There’s no wiggle room.”
He was immediately dismissed.
The week after Grard was fired, he said, his wife, Lisa, who wrote a biweekly food column for the Sentinel as a freelancer, received an e-mail informing her that her work would no longer be needed.
Sounds like he has a legitimate claim on being discriminated against based on his religion.
This person should sue the pants off of everyone involved in this.
I see a settlement large enough to shut that paper down
This guy should lawyer up. I don’t know if Maine is a employment-at-will state, but firing somebody for what they say in a private email from a personally-owned computer might be actionable.
This is America?!
Hopefully he will soon own the paper and can fire every one of the liberal bastar*s. That will be sweet revenge.
Rico vs HRC using a claim of tortious inference with a labor contract? Rico is a claim magnifier.
“I don’t know if Maine is a employment-at-will state”
I don’t think employment at will applies. If you just fire the person it would. If you tell them its because of a religious belief then you have a problem.
Are you sure that's the outcome you want?
;->
Not only that, but the man used his personal email to respond. He didn’t do it on a work computer. He has a God given right to his opinion. I just don’t understand why the gay movement is so hateful and vindictive!
Sounds like he has a civil case in either federal or state courts.
I agree with you. This guy (and his wife) need to find a lawyer who will bury this sick scumbag Bill Thompson and bankrupt that toilet tissue, the Sentinel.
..This is America?!...
That’s what they keep telling us but I REALLY have been doubting it.
It says he used his own e-mail; but we don’t know if he used a work computer or a computer at home. Either way, firing the guy is way overboard.
So just to clarify... The press who has their own protection in the constitution chooses to ignore that for one of their own ....? got it.
and they got his wife fired, too?????
the management of this rag needs to watch this rag go down
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