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The National Organization for Marriage has a new phony victim of the so-called gay plot to “silence Christians.” And like their past other fake martyrs, his story is highly suspect.
If we are to believe the video, which I refuse to post to my blog (you can see it here if you like), Damian Goodard is a freelance sportscaster who was fired from Rogers Sportsnet (a Canadian company) earlier this year for allegedly tweeting against marriage equality.
Now some folks have been quick to point out that this has nothing to do with marriage equality in America. Of course the religious right combats that with the “slippery slope” argument. Others have said that this situation is a free speech issue. And that could be.
But then there is a third argument which needs to be explored.
According to Jeremy Hooper from Goodasyou.org, Sportstnet is saying that Goodard was fired for “a number of well-documented reasons” which the company will reveal should Goodard seek legal action. A representative of Sportsnet also said that Goodard is aware of those reasons.
As it is known, Goodard has not sought legal action.
And that leads me to ask, just what is he hiding?
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every time someone brings up the “free speech” argument they need to be reminded of what free speech actually is. Free speech means you are free to speak your mind without GOVERNMENT interference. It doesn’t mean you are free to say whatever you want without the possibility of consequences from your employer unless your employer is the government. And, for business owners who want to discriminate, free speech doesn’t mean they are protected from any consequences from their customer base.
True enough, but think about this for a moment: If the guy had been fired after tweeting in favor of marriage equality then the firepuppies would be filled with righteous indignation, screaming about discrimination in the workplace, and convinced beyond doubt that the “number of well-documented reasons” was a bullshit coverup.
Not necessarily. The big clue, here, that something might be up is that this dude jumped on camera with a heterosexual-supremacist propaganda group instead of hiring a competent civil-rights/employment lawyer.
(Of course, Canadian laws regarding heterosexual-supremacist propaganda make the comparison that NOM is trying to push irrelevant anyway…)
…and if the totalitarian anti-reality tweets in question were through a Twitter account associated with/promoted by his employer as a way of promoting his professional persona, then he’d have even less grounds to object.
Ah…. so if he’d tweeted in favor and then jumped on camera with a pro-equality propaganda group you think the firepuppies wouldn’t support him? Because that’s where your logic leads…
I think you’re missing my point, M.
Let me see if I can clarify. If you’re going to defend someone’s right to a personal opinion and to not be discriminated against in the workplace because of that (irrelevant to the job) opinion then you will be much more credible if you take that position regardless of whether or not you agree with his opinion.
What was that line from “The American President”? Something like, “Free speech means being willing to listen to a man who makes your blood boil standing center-stage advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing.”
Canadian law enshrines protections of freedom of speech too, you know. It also enshrines a great many rights of the worker, including rights against unfair dismissal. If Mr. Goodard feels that he was unlawfully dismissed (as he would be, were the tweet the only cause of his dismissal), then why isn’t he taking it to court? Besides providing him with a more visible platform to purvey his point of view, it was also result in significant material gains – win-win, from his perspective.
Instead, he chooses to cross the border and whine to a known hate group about how those evil gays wrecked his career. The only remotely sane reason for doing that is that he knows (or at least seriously fears) that not only will he lose in court, he’ll be embarrassed by whatever his ex-employer says about him.