Posted on 09/15/2004 4:11:47 PM PDT by quantim
John Kerry Campaign Hires Fired Worker
POSTED: 9:06 am EDT September 15, 2004
DETROIT -- Democrat John Kerry has a new campaign worker helping him drum up support in Alabama after hiring a woman who was fired for displaying the presidential candidate's bumper sticker on her car.
Kerry called Lynne Gobbell on Tuesday after reading a newspaper story describing how she had been fired last Thursday from her job packing cellulose insulation at a Moulton, Ala., plant.
Gobbell said her former employer had told her she could either work for him or Kerry. She said Kerry told her, "Let him know that as of today, you're working for John Kerry." "He was proud of me for standing up for what I believe in," the newly employed, 41-year-old said of her quick phone call with the candidate.
Gobbell said Kerry didn't offer too many details about her new position. She will be helping the campaign and may be traveling a little as it gets closer to the election.
She could receive help from another corner, as well. A liberal Web site, AMERICAblog.org, began raising money for Gobbell on Monday night after learning of her dismissal. John Aravosis, who runs the site, said he collected $1,800 over a 24-hour period.
Sued for what? discrimination? political affiliation is not a protected designation under the law.
I am a certified sommelier. Sanctioned, certified by The Court Of Master Sommeliers. You are not. Boone's Farm is not wine. You are not qualified to make that derogatory claim.
See #111. The employer attempted to coerce her to remove a bumper sticker amounting to protected political speech from her car. It's clear from the employers own acitons, that R activities were condoned and she was threatened with job loss for simply exercising her right to apply the sticker to her car.
Looks like she was eating the cellulose
Just while she's on HIS property. Once she drives out of the parking lot, she can put the sticker right back on. And it in no way stops her from voting for whomever she pleases.
I guess, as someone asked before, you wouldn't mind if I came along and plunked a Bush/Cheney sign on your lawn. Try and stop me, and you'll be violating my 1st Amendment right to free speech...according to your interpretation of the law.
she'll probably join the secretarial pool where she will be feverishly typing memos on behalf of dead colonels for the afternoon Kinko's run
I agree. There must be more to this story.
"Once she drives out of the parking lot, she can put the sticker right back on."
The 1st Amend does not provide for a priviledged class that can dictate that. Such a concept is unAmerican and does not honor Freedom.
" you wouldn't mind if I came along and plunked a Bush/Cheney sign on your lawn."
No one will see it. You can hang as many as you want in the trees along the road as long as it's presentable, so it doesn't look like idiots support him. You may not hang at rat posters. My viking kitties will see that and notify Mr. Skunk that lives with them under the house.
If I hire you you may park your car just like everyone else and I don't care what you have on it. I may make a comment, but otherwise it's none of my business.
So as long as someone affixes their sign, bumper sticker, whatever to a piece of their own property, that gives them the right to place it on someone elses property against their wishes? So, I can nail a big political sign to my box spring mattress and put it on my neighbor's lawn and he can't do anything about it, because the sign is on MY property, not theirs? Do I have that about right?
The 1st Amend does not provide for a priviledged class that can dictate that.
Hmmmmm...not the 1st Amend, but perhaps the 4th...
If I hire you you may park your car just like everyone else and I don't care what you have on it. I may make a comment, but otherwise it's none of my business.
Wow, so you're an exceptionally good sport. Big deal. Just because YOU choose not to exercise your private property rights doesn't mean others have to follow your example.
The woman was an employee and was entitled to park her car in the lot just like all the rest. She was singled out for having an attached bumper sticker.
"Wow, so you're an exceptionally good sport."
I'm an American that values Freedom and honors that of others.
" Just because YOU choose not to exercise your private property rights doesn't mean others have to follow your example."
The facts given sofar and 18USC245 says this is about her 1st Ament. rights. The idea that an employer can pick and choose what bumper stickers his employees can paste on there cars is un American. It is a reprehensable assalt on Freedom. The men that fought for and won it from the petty tyrants that roam this Earth extended it as a gift from the very beginning of this Country. They wrote the 1st Amend. and the ones that won the Freedom for the former slaves wrote the 14th and various sections in 18USC, that are supposed to protect rights recognized by the feds from any petty tyrants. WHether they be private citizens, or bozos in some lower political jurisdiction.
I grew up watching the rats use this tool of electioneering by intimidation and threat of job loss. It is how they kept the peasants in line. It's much more effective than having dead people vote.
The employer in this case is a petty tyrant that gave the opposition a choice piece of propaganda mat'l. He doesn't have near enough resources to compensate for the damage he's done. It will be up to the good will of the relevant electorate to realize that the employer is a prick and this is not how Rs in gen'l operate.
He doesn't have that right as long as they are using their cars to advertise for a political party OFF his property. Just like she does not have the right to use his property to advertise for the politician of her choice.
By your reasoning, a Catholic Church would have no right to tell an employee that they could not have a pro-choice bumber sticker displayed on their car on church property.
You speak like she hung a banner across the front of his business. You speak as if she's a simple guest. She is an employee like all the others and has been discriminated against, because of the particular message on her property. The employer's property is irrelevant, because all the others are allowed to park their property in his lot w/o comment. Additionally he was involved in electioneer on company property and welcomed other bumper stickers.
The facts are clear. He intimidated the woman to silence and abandon her first amend right by threatening job loss. He violated 18USC245.
His parking lot is not her property it is his, and she did not have his permission to advertise "her" political candidate on "his" property. She has every right to advertise whoever she wants OFF his property.
Not at all, he simply told her she could not trample on his first ammendment rights by advertising a politician ON HIS property and without his permission.
The church should be more discrete in their hiring. Now this scenario is as if the church was Pepsi and the employee brandished coke products. Or, the employer was the RNC and the employee was a Kerry supporter. The context makes it entirely different. The woman's sticker was not related to her job. It was related solely to her political choice.
I don't think we know the whole story. Has the employer told his side of the story (legally can he). Sort of sounds like she walked out..
LOL! So by your way of thinking the employers should have litmus tests, you can only work here if you support this political party or this specific position. Now that might be a real problem.
Bottom line is the owner has first ammendment rights, and that would include not having to allow anyone from advertising a politician on his property that he does not approve of.
And she has the right to exercise her first ammendment right OFF his property...and unemploy herself whenever she so wishes.
Well if that's what they want, that's how they must set up the company's rules from the beginning. They can't just do it ad hoc as this guy did, it's unlawful. Also they can't do it at all if they get any fed funds, or other bennies.
It's unlawful to reserve the right to not have someone post politicial ads on your personal property? In America?
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