If a universities chief diversity officer had signed a petition supporting the KKK I doubt any of you would be protesting his being fired.

Hahahahah!!! I found this on Public Advocate: http://www.publicadvocateusa.org/library/Petition.pdf

That’s what she signed.

And yet, he does not seem to think that being denied the right to marry is an “issue relate to personal liberties”.

Ms McCaskill’s actions show that she’s quite comfortable putting our freedoms up for auction – if the referendum she supports gets a majority, we can’t get married.

That’s not a minor transgression for a diversity officer, that’s a major block to her ability to perform her job.

She’d never, ever support a vote that might bring back slavery (slavery is common in the Bible, and acceptable to God, apparently) but considers it ok to support a vote to withhold marriage rights to gay people.

How can you say this is not an attack on our personal liberties?

If the tables were turned and gays always had the unchallenged right to marry and blacks were just beginning to get that right not one of you posting here would be opposed in the slightest to a university diversity officer being fired if he signed a petition opposing the right of blacks to marry. I’m sure most of you will make the obligatory claim that you would oppose the firing of such a person but both a person honestly belieiving that and one lying about that solely to avoid looking like a hypocrite would make the same claim.

While we understand that to mean one thing; that understanding has not been well conveyed to the General Population nor is it accepted as true.

Most people are going to look at this situation & think we’re being terrifically close-minded & I’m inclined to agree with them. Were it not for the level-headed actions of the campaigners we would have already handed our a prime opportunity to exploit.

Perhaps she in not a student of history & doesn’t understand that people don’t like extending civil rights & she honestly believes that this is a legitimate vote.

Remember too that all this is confusing for those who don’t keep tabs on it. Is it okay to vote on a constitutional amendment as opposed to a referendum? What’s the difference? When we’re talking about voting on rights (on both sides) we conflate the Constitutional Amendments with Popular Vetos. Further complicating it: sometimes the amendments themselves are vetos & the legitimacy of the action turns on when the Amendment was introduced.

Like it or not states have a right to modify their Constitutions. Now they can’t modify them to take away rights already granted like CA did; but they can to reinforce the already codified meaning as GA & TX did. SO what’s happening in MD? Why do we expect her to differentiate between a Constitutional Amendment & a People’s Veto?

Let’s stop assuming we know anything about her because her name is on a petition.

No national consensus has been reached even regarding anti-gay hate groups. That is why your analogy fails.

You guys all have a double standard, you have deference for anti-gay attitudes you’d never grant to racists.

Its time gays got over their stockholm syndrome and stopped feeling they need to cut slack to anti-gays they’d never dream of giving to racists.

The First Amendment only applies to governmental action, or “state action,” to use the term from the case law. It does not apply to private action. The government can’t shut you up, but your mother can (unless your mother is a governmental official acting in the scope of her position).

However, there could be a statute that applies to a particular fact pattern. Here, an issue could be whether Gallaudet’s action constitutes unlawful discrimination on the basis of religion.

Back in the 1990′s, there was a contrversy when NBA player Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (né Chris Jackson) of the Denver Nuggets refused to stand for the national anthem before games. He said that doing so would conflict with his Islamic beliefs.

The NBA suspended him, saying that he violated a rule requiring all players, team staff, and officials to stand respectfully for the national anthem before games. The NBA said that he would remain on suspension until he agreed to obey the rule.

The First Amendment was not at issue, because the NBA is a private entity. But the question was raised as to whether the NBA’s sanction constituted religious discrimination in violation of applicable statutes.

No litigation occurred, as a compromise was reached under which Abdul-Rauf agreed that he would stand and pray during the national anthem.

My point is that, while there can be legitimate discussions about what private employers can and should do with respect to employees’ views on political or social issues, the First Amendment does not apply to the discussion. In line with what I’ve said before, if an employee of the Maryland Catholic Conference were found to have signed a pro-gay marriage petition, the employee would be terminated immediately.

Gallaudet University, while it is Congressionally charted, is a private, non-profit corporation.