Comments on: Peter Vadala and His Special Rights

By: Jason

Jason — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 13:38:13 +0000

Kat — That is a typical response from someone who does not have a response in debate…try to dismiss the person who disagrees with them by slandering and insulting them. In fact, most of the responses use insulting name calling “bigot”, “homophobic”, “idiot” etc.
The most important item that everyone seems to be unwilling or unable to comprehend is that this is an issue of thought control. It is very dangerous for a society to attempt to control thoughts/beliefs. You may not like what a person believes but once we start punishing people for having beliefs that we disagree with we lose our liberty/freedom. The Nazis were a perfect example of a society trying to control thought. Anyone who expressed anything except hate towards Jews were “taken away”. Iran today tries to control thought in their country by Sharia law which allows a person who leaves Islam to be put to death. As well intentioned as some “thought” laws are trying to be…in principle they are dangerous because the do not allow for true freedom.
The whole crux of my argument is that we discern the difference between a belief and behavior. Lets use a different example. If I am engaging in a behavior like eating meat that someone that I work with believes is immoral and she expresses their beliefs by saying “what you are doing is bad and immoral. We should never eat meat”; is that worthy of having them be fired? This is analogous because one person is ascribing their belief system to a behavior. Please open your mind to think about this example. Look at the basic principle at work. If you respond emotionally by saying “eating meat is not the same as a person’s love life” then you are not engaging in looking at the core point.
There are many belief systems in the world. In America we have (perhaps had) the ability to express our beliefs freely. Why is it different if it is a belief in Christianity?
Ultimately the decision of who is employed by a private company is up to the company. The danger is that policies that exhibit “thought control” are being accepted in our society. It is a slippery slope to go down the path of thought control.
Just for the record…I would love and encourage any homosexual to come to my church. I have before. Everyone needs to hear the gospel.
Rev 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. Jesus Christ

By: Beyan

Beyan — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 23:35:33 +0000

Wow, the bigots really hate the idea of gay people being equal don’t they? They just can’t stand that a gay person would have the cheek not to accept their status as subhuman and talk about their loved one in the same way as a straight person would…it’s like they think they’re a full person or something! Tsk tsk, can’t have that. Obviously it’s fine for a straight (full) person to talk about their loved ones, but the subhuman queers had better just sit there being ashamed and never mentioning theirs, because that would be being “in your face” about their “perversion”.
What is heartening is that the bigots are so obviously struggling to come up with halfway-decent arguments to justify their hate. They clearly don’t like it one bit that the world is evolving, treating gay people as second-class citizens is no longer accepted in society or the workplace, and more and more of the population are against their narrow-minded unpleasantness. As they find themselves more and more ostracised, they resort to increasingly desperate tactics and absurd arguments…I think they know really that they’ve lost, and their dinosaur movement is in its death throes (not that dinosaurs ever existed of course). Those who have been pressing for a kinder, gentler society just need to keep going in the same direction, and things will continue to improve.
The bigots can think what they like but in the workplace at least, where gay people can’t get away from them, they will just have to swallow their hate and outwardly accept the idea of equality, however much they can’t hack the fact that society has embraced it. Why is making gay people miserable seemingly the most important part of Christianity for these people anyway? There are so many positive, nice things that they could campaign for instead.

By: Rachael

Rachael — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 06:59:04 +0000

It seems people often forget the detail that this was a visiting coworker not a regular one. He may have never seen her again. Couldn’t he have let it go after just a day? Also, he was very new to the company. He had only been there a few weeks. If you owned a retail shop and a new employee violated your policies would you keep him around? what if he had said something like that to a customer? There was no history for them to look to that would suggest that this might not become an ongoing problem. Finally, he mentions in his account a training video featuring the harassment of homosexuals. He clearly was aware of what the company considered to be harassment and that the company would not tolerate actions or words against homosexuals. If he felt that strongly about his position on homosexuality he should have left his company after watching the video.

By: John A. Fernung

John A. Fernung — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 17:19:18 +0000

Just because you disagree with something doesn’t mean you are “phobic” about it. It is already illegal to express your opinions in Canada and Britain, do we really want that here? In the words of feminist professor and noted lesbian, Camille Paglia, “Words must remain free.” She said this while defending the appointment of conservative leaning Justice Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. As Christians, when dealing with our fallen, sinful world, Jesus said; “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” Matthew 6:10. The days of men calling good evil and evil good was predicted in the old testament should come as no surprise. We will have to keep our opinions to ourselves except (for the time-being) in church. We were well warned this would happen, we just didn’t think it would be this soon. Next, churches that won’t marry homosexuals will lose tax exempt status and, eventually, their buildings. For some reason, our country has chosen to embrace the idea of someone’s lifestyle choice granting them protected minority status. If I were a minority, I would be a little insulted. Well, maybe a lot insulted.

[Note from Rob: Really? How do you feel about your protected status as a majority? Christians are protected by law from discrimination and they're covered by hate crime laws. Are you insulted by your current protected status, or do you just take that for granted?]

By: Kat

Kat — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 05:24:52 +0000

Wade, shouldn’t you be busy preparing for the rapture or something?
Jason, you’re simply an idiot.
And Ricky, thanks for showing that not all straight men have to be homophobic. Wade and Jason, take notes.

By: ricky

ricky — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 10:11:31 +0000

i landed here because i saw the fox news interview this guy did and googled his name. i see his christian cohorts have done the same and defend him in various places his story is mentioned. i have never been to this site before but due to the stuff in the sidebar i’m gonna guess it is a gay leaning site. these people have NO shame. he called his boss a devient. if i had called my boss the b word (i worked in an office with women i was the only male) i would have been fired on the spot no questions asked. and i worked for the country government. this due is using the same ploy they always use, claim a person saying they are gay is shoving their sex life in your face.

By: somedude

somedude — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 03:53:47 +0000

This kid was a com-arts major at franciscan university of steubenville (franciscan.edu). The com-arts students do all sorts of mock interviews, newscasts, multimedia production, etc. It’s quite obvious to me that he’s simply an attention-starved dude fulfilling his lifelong dream of being on TV, using his “campaign” against homosexuals as a means to his absurd end…

By: Colin

Colin — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:40:22 +0000

Vadala was not punished for thinking he was punished for expressing his bigoted beliefs in an inappropriate forum.

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:12:59 +0000

Richelle,

You compare oranges to apples. Your examples of discrimination include aspects of people that are physical characteristics of them. I do agree that one should not put people down for their physical characteristics…we do not differ there. Behaviors are different from physical characteristics. I really do not care about what the laws state because every law is not based in truth. Again I would have handled it differently but I still do not believe that he should have been fired for stating his opinion about her behavior.

Jenifer, She never answered my question…but why don’t you give it a try…

Why should someone be punished for thought?

By: Jennifer Juniper

Jennifer Juniper — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 07:23:19 +0000

First, I love how Jason disappears as soon as Richelle gives such an excellent response to his question.

Second, people like Wade make me sick. We don’t want or need your help to make sure we don’t sin against god, so please don’t bother.

Third, it never ceases to amaze me how people can hear of a situation and completely distort it to suit their own agendas! If Vadala said “I don’t think you should talk about your personal life at work” or “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell me about your personal life” or anything along those lines BEFORE he even found out she was marrying a woman, then that would be perfectly acceptable. This guy WANTED to know about her fiance UNTIL he found out it was a woman. So how could she POSSIBLY know to stop mentioning it around him until he said it was “bad stuff” that she was marrying a woman. And to call her a “bitch” for talking about her wedding?! That is INCREDIBLE! The leaps in logic the religious right have to make! It’s unreal!

I know I shouldn’t constantly be so surprised by reactions like this, but I just can’t help it. I’m so grateful to not know too many people like this in my everyday life (as far as I’m aware) and only have to be subjected to it via the internet… But I feel horrible for the many, many people who are not so fortunate.