Posted on 08/31/2005 7:01:36 AM PDT by ZGuy
A computer technician in California has filed a lawsuit against his employer after being reprimanded for expressing his support for traditional marriage at work.
The employee at a private Orange County company works at an office where co-workers are allowed to have personal, religious and political messages in their cubicles. But when he placed a bumper sticker supporting traditional marriage in his own cubicle, his supervisor ordered him to remove it. The worker removed the sticker but was still demoted and reprimanded.
Realizing he was being treated illegally, the employee contacted Pacific Justice Institute, a legal organization specializing in the defense of religious freedom, parental rights, and other civil liberties. PJI attempted to resolve the matter peacefully, first contacting and informing the employer that its actions were in violation of state and federal law. However, the California company refused to change its position and continues to ban the employee's pro-marriage message.
As a result, PJI joined with affiliate attorney Laurie Messerly in filing a federal lawsuit on the employee's behalf. Commenting on the new suit, Messerly said it is "appalling that some employers think they can silence workers based solely on their viewpoint." However, she says she is confident "the justice system will right the wrongs done to this employee."
Attorney and PJI president Brad Dacus says the First Amendment prohibits employers from discriminating against a worker based on his or her personal, political, or religious viewpoints. "We commend this employee for taking a stand for traditional marriage," he says, "and we are committed to standing with him in federal court."
Dacus goes on to explain that the law "basically says when employees are allowed to post personal material expressing their opinions and perspectives on different issues in their own private work cubicle, and it doesn't impact or impair or create a hardship on the employer, then the employer must not discriminate or harass employees because of their beliefs and convictions that are exhibited in their private cubicle."
Since other employees at the Orange County firm were permitted to have personal, religious and even political messages in their cubicles, the PJI president contends that it constitutes a violation of the client's free-speech rights for his employer to bar him from doing the same. No workers "should ever have to deal with such outright intolerance, hostility, and tyranny by a manager or supervisor who has a chip on their shoulder" about the institution of marriage, the lawyer says.
Dacus insists that the California company's worker and others like him should not be forced to face unlawful discrimination "simply because they believe in the institution of marriage and support the institution of marriage." In the suit, the Orange County employee is asking for unspecified damages and a return to his former position.
If the guy was a jerk, that's a different issue to deal with. If you allow things to be posted in cubicles then it's for everyone, not just people you like. Considering the guy complied about taking it down, I would give him the benefit of the doubt. He shouldn't have been punished if he co-operated.
"You argue that because the government (which you call, cutely enough, 'the people') facilitates markets, it has a right to impose any regulations it wishes on participants in the markets. 'Government control of the markets' is the definition of fascism. You have articulately argued that because the government giveth (which is false), therefore the government has the right to taketh away.
...because the government owns my private property, to the extent that they can tell me how to use it. So much for freedom of association. Sieg hiel."
I am not arguing that the government is the people.
I am stating it. That is not just the theory of our democratic republic, it's the fact of it. Our laws across the board by-and-large reflect what the people of this country want. There are compromises, and nobody is happy with all of it, but on any given issue, issue by issue, the laws come quite close to the public opinion on the subject. This is only natural in a democracy.
Government enforcement of contracts and property rights is primordial to the very existence of capitalism. It is not a little thing, but a big thing. But capitalist economics are not our only values system. We care about other issues, moral issues, like the equality of people before the law. We don't much like oppressive behavior by people over other people either, and when we see it, we tend to react against it by enacting laws to limit it. Bosses can still tell employees what to do, but all experience has shown that they cannot be accorded the authority of lords of the manor, because there is no limit to the impositions that one with economic (or physical) power over another will make unless he is limited in some way by some greater force that keeps him in check.
We all know this. Checks and balances are built into the very fabric of our government because we all know that you simply cannot trust anybody with excessive power.
This should not be controversial, but for some reason you take great umbrage at the notion that there are rules and limits on employers.
Government regulation of markets is not fascism. It is the sensible result of applied experience in our capital system. Markets don't solve all ills, and some ills are so bad that we simply have to rectify them by law.
The government doesn't own your private property. You do.
However, you cannot use your private property in a way that abuses everyone else. If you are my neighbor and hold in fee simple, it's your property, and you should be able to do as you please, so long as you don't abuse the liberty. If "what you please" consists of putting up stink pots at the property line, or storing great mounds of offal and human feces in a fly-covered pile in your backyard, or having wild parties with 150 decibel music at 3 AM, or nude sunbathing in the middle of your front yard, or building a house without a permit or without respecting the building codes, or setting up death traps and minefields (clearly marked) on your property line - in all of those cases the law will step in and tell you no. Not because anybody thinks your property isn't yours, but because you don't have the right to press your private property rights to the point that you destroy everyone else's enjoyment of theirs.
This shouldn't be controversial, really.
I'm sure no decent liberal newspaper would reprint such a blatantly biased, intolerant and insensitive message.
While I agree with you in general, I would not want to be part of a society where I was, say an Asian man, doing good work and enjoying a good career when suddenly a new manager is brought in who hates Asians and abruptly fires me for no other reason than I am Asian.
That society's OK with you?
It is a work environment where such statements are allowed. IOW if he had put pro-homosexuals statements or a homo-flag, it would have been ok.
Only THESE particular views were singled out.
Even so, you can't discriminate against the man just because he is christian. That is where the demotion comes in.
I didn't think you were being coy or anything. But I noticed you picked the expression with the propaganda power: "the people". For example, "the people" bombed a medicine factory in Somalia. "The people" created a prescription drug benefit which will cost us trillions. "The people" passed a ban on "assault weapons".
The reality is that our republic was designed around the protection of private property rights. "The people" have trampled those rights in the dirt. Your belief that it's OK, since "the people" wanted it that way, is a pure and simple affirmation of statism (and as pertains to markets, of fascism).
Our laws across the board by-and-large reflect what the people of this country want.
That has been disproven quite thoroughly in a number of ways. Just to name one, are you honestly saying that a majority of Americans want to pay three times more for sugar than the rest of the world does? The laws hardly reflect what a majority actually want. But that doesn't matter anyway: the constitution was designed to restrain "the people"--remember, the framers believed in limited "the people"--and, in particular, to protect certain rights and freedoms from "the people". The bill of rights list some key restraints on "the people", at least the federal "the people", which are not followed today. Which brings us back to the freedom of association, may it rest in peace.
Government enforcement of contracts and property rights is primordial to the very existence of capitalism.
You love to beg questions, don't you? Actually the federal "the people" has no authority to enforce contracts. That power is reserved to the state "the peoples". But you are arguing that only a particular method of enforcing contracts makes markets possible. Counter-examples exist in history, including American history, including, wouldja believe it, today in America! The use of arbitrators represents a parallel judiciary that is voluntary rather than mandatory, and it does a lot of good.
This shouldn't be controversial, really.
Because the rightness of statism is self-evident? Sigh. Just... sigh.
"I'm curious, what did the bumper sticker say?
I'm sure no decent liberal newspaper would reprint such a blatantly biased, intolerant and insensitive message.."
Ummm, this was at a Christian website. The story has huge, gaping holes.
I believe that those who would do that would find it bad for business. Much as I find that situation to be wrong it should be treated as much like free speech, for what would they be doing but expressing their opinion. In their opinion (Enter ethnic term of choice) does not get to work for them. But then again, maybe you don't think freedom is such a good thing.
>They never, ever have been. There have been laws limiting employers and limiting private property rights for as long as there has been a Common Law.
That does not make it right.
>Fascism has nothing to do with it.
Giving government control over private property does tend in that direction.
Yes, that's it, I don't think freedom is a good thing.
It's always frustrating discussing issues like this with people like you because there's no middle ground -- you're either "in favor of freedom" or "you're a jack-booted thug." Reality never enters the discussion.
I am in favor of freedom. However, there are a great deal of limits on that freedom. For one example of thousands I could posit, I am not free to build a house on your front lawn. And I am not free to fire your sister because I don't like chicks. That is not un-American, that is quintessentially American.
bump for later.
I am not free to build a house on your front lawn.
Not a good example because its apples and oranges.
And I am not free to fire your sister because I don't like chicks.
This is a good example and ... why not?
Excellent post.
The law says you can't. Don't like it. Change the laws or don't open a business.
DING DING DING! We have a winner! The first thing that anti-private-property regulation does is to inhibit the free market. But that carries no political penalty, because people don't know about the businesses that didn't open. Various violations of the bill of rights are indeed the main reason that I don't start a business.
Meanwhile, you are apparently quite comfortable with the idea that unconstitutional laws are enforced. So your statist sympathies overrule your belief in the original principles of the constitution. (Your reply, of course, will be that the "constitution is whatever the supreme court says it is". Sigh. Is there a web site where conservatives can get together?)
Arbitration only works because courts stand ready to enforce arbitral decisions. Without the power of the state to compel performance of contracts or obedience to adjudicated decision, people would welch on contracts and NOT PAY. It happens all the time, but the law acts as a backstop to protect the performing contractant. That this can be done in arbitration rather than in a full-blown court proceeding is admirably efficient. But it wouldn't work at all if the state were not willing to stand behind binding arbitration and enforce arbitral decisions.
As to the enforcement of contracts, the jurisdiction over contractual disputes between citizens of different states has ALWAYS reposed in the Federal Courts. It's written right into the Constitution. Your assertion that the federal power does not extend to the enforcement of contracts is in error on the plain text of the Constitution, q.v.
There is freedom of association.
There never was freedom to abuse any freedom.
What constitutes an abuse of freedom has been largely defined by law. Firing somebody for being a Catholic, and refusing to hire somebody because he's black are both examples of things that have been outlawed. You don't have to admit Catholics or blacks into your house, unless you hold open the doors of your house to commerce and become a public inn. Then you DO. Which is as it should be.
>They never, ever have been. There have been laws limiting employers and limiting private property rights for as long as there has been a Common Law.
"That does not make it right."
That all depends on what one's opinion of right and wrong is, and who says.
I'm bad with names, but I have a feeling we've had this conversation before. There's something eerily familiar about your religious certainty that nothing would work right in this world without a bureaucrat and a cop handy to pull levers and shoot bad guys.
Without the power of the state to compel performance of contracts or obedience to adjudicated decision, people would welch on contracts and NOT PAY.
Bravo Sierra. People are sinful, so they will indeed lie, cheat and steal when they think they can get away with it--but usually they can't, and the government is not the primary reason. Companies that bilk their customers quickly end up with no customers. We have a word for that; we call it "out of business".
There is freedom of association. There never was freedom to abuse any freedom.
Sorta like there's free speech, but not hate speech? I can associate freely, as long as I don't stop associating with the people you want me to? That's big of you, herr kommisar.
You don't have to admit Catholics or blacks into your house, unless you hold open the doors of your house to commerce and become a public inn. Then you DO. Which is as it should be.
You're saying if I decide to do business with Joe, it's right and proper for a bureaucrat and a cop to come along and force me to do business with Frank, Bill and Mary as well? And you base this on the belief that doing business with whom I wish is "abusing my freedom"? I don't deserve my freedom if I plan to use it a little too freely for your tastes? Yup. I think we have had this conversation before, and I realized that you were visiting from DU. But once again, you had me going for a while.
Me, visiting from DU?
Ha!
Not at all, sir.
I am a traditionalist. I believe in our system of liberty in law. You are arguing that liberty exists without law.
And I think you are dead wrong on that score.
Indeed, I expect that without the law and the willingness of people to enforce it, you would be dead period.
As would a good many of us.
Our law has never, ever allowed people to do absolutely anything they wanted, say abolutely anything they wanted, buy and sell absolutely anything they wanted, or conduct business absolutely anyway they wanted. And wisely so.
As far back as you would like to go, there have always been very sharp moral limitations on virtually every sort of abuse.
Now, it's clear that you don't like the idea of any such limitations, which is your prerogative. To argue that they DO NOT exist, or historically DID NOT exist is, well, erroneous. They do. They did.
The basis for your resistance to the concept of the rule of law doesn't lie in history. So where does it lie? On what general principle? That your liberty is completely unlimited, limited only by your own sovereign will?
employers should be able to fire or hire based on whatever reason they want. It's their business.
***Sure, in some other country. But this is the United States of America, where we have rights to freedom of speech and assembly, that kind of thing. We don't give up those rights just because some group puts up a building with an INC. sign on it and we go there. When that company opened its doors on american soil, it was agreeing to abide by american laws.
Why is it we don't hear about companies setting up shop in Asia and telling their employees that they can't practice Buddhist beliefs? Good manners? Then why the bad manners here in the U.S.?
"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains."
--Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 1814. ME 14:119
Read this article to follow where your ridiculous line of unpatriotic reasoning extends...
Chinese Prove Marx Right: Deracinated US Business Elite Lobbies for Chinese Interests
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1466674/posts?page=3#3
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