The blog LGBTQ Nation praised a new "CBS Cares" video that CBS employees made in the "It Gets Better" video series affirming gay teenagers against bullying. But for Christians, it gets worse. They don't get bullied. They just get fired. Take the case of evangelical speaker Frank Turek, who wrote at Townhall.com about being fired from Cisco Systems.
When a homosexual manager found out on the Internet that I had authored a book giving evidence that maintaining our current marriage laws would be best for society, he couldn’t tolerate me and requested I be fired. An HR executive canned me within hours without ever speaking to me.
It sounds like the Cisco Systems version of the Juan Williams story. He concluded;
Cisco’s chief “Inclusion and Diversity” officer, Ms. Marilyn Nagel, had trouble on the phone defining what “inclusion and diversity” actually means at Cisco, so she sent me several links from the Cisco website. As in our conversation, I found no specific definition on the website but plenty of platitudes, such as Cisco is committed to “valuing and encouraging different perspectives, styles, thoughts, and ideas.”
If that’s the case, then why not value my “perspectives, styles, thoughts and ideas?”
Because only certain perspectives, styles, thoughts and ideas are approved, you see. “Inclusion and diversity” to corporate elites actually means exclusion for those that don’t agree with the approved views.
Peter LaBarbera at Americans for Truth added:
One reason I deduce this is that while attending (undercover) the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force “Creating Change” meeting earlier this year, I listened as a homosexual activist described (to a room full of fellow “gay” activists) a church talk given by Turek that he had attended as a critic. The homosexual advocate described Turek’s presentation and demeanor as kind and bereft of malice. This particular LGBT activist works diligently to convert Christians to a pro-“gay rights” mindset, and yet – even as he opposed Turek’s ideas – he found no hatred for homosexuals in the man.
Anika Smith at Evolution News noted that Turek is not alone in the Fired Christian category:
This story is becoming too common for a free society. Blogger Max Andrews reports on the Frank Turek discrimination case:
Dr. Turek was hired by Cisco back in 2008 to train in leadership techniques and team building for their Remote Operations Services team. Dr. Turek "was fired as a vendor for his political and religious views, even though those views were never mentioned or expressed during his work at Cisco." What happened was one of the managers in Dr. Turek's program Googled Turek and noticed that he had authored a book, which advocated a particular position on marriage that this manager, a self-identified homosexual, disagreed with. A complaint was filed against Dr. Turek for not having values consistent with Cisco.
If this story sounds like you may have heard it before, it's because there's a trend. Andrews notes:
This whole situation is strikingly similar, perhaps even worse than the wrongful termination of NASA's JPL information technology specialist David Coppedge...
Coppedge was terminated for allegedly "pushing" intelligent design upon his coworkers. JPL associated this with Coppedge's "religious beliefs" and so Coppedge sued on grounds of religious discrimination. (I suggest reading the articles listed for a full account). Cisco meets a sub-par standard of internal consistency and had a knee-jerk reaction to, well they didn't really know what it was they were reacting to.
Thought crimes have filtered down from academia into the workplace. Regardless of what you think of Dr. Turek's views, that he should be fired merely for having them is alarming, and everyone who values academic freedom should be watching this closely.
