Thanks for the Ruling, OHRC
Christian Horizons is an evangelical organization that runs 180 group homes for 1,400 people with developmental disabilities, here in Ontario. It does so under an annual $75 million contract with the provincial government, employing 2,500 individuals to staff the residences. Each one of those employees has to sign a "morality pledge" as a condition of their employment with CH.
The pledge requires the future employee to promise they will refrain from a list of proscribed behaviours that includes homosexual relationships, extra-marital dalliances, pre-marital intimacies, "endorsing" alcohol or cigarettes, and lying. Yep, lying. Of course, everyone who signs that pledge is telling the truth; the whole truth; and nothing but the truth. Aren't they?
It all makes me think of the staff members at the Catholic schools at which I taught through my years before the blackboard. They were all supposed to live a life that embodied all the tenets of the catholic faith, both on school property, and off it. The funny thing was that the vast majority of those staff members had just two children. They would never have used birth control to achieve that, which made it the strangest coincidence imaginable that all those schools hired all those people who all had the same limitations on their reproductive capabilities. They would all be eschewing birth control, since his holiness Benny continues to declare it to be a no-no. Wouldn't they?
Don't get me wrong. I'm quite sure there must be at least one or two staff members, both at those aforementioned schools, and at the residences run by CH, for whom the pledged living of christian values is actually more than a convenient fudging of the truth in order to land a job, but you know bloody well they are few and far between. For the rest of the employees and the pledge wielding employers, it's all hypocrisy.
That pledge has now gotten the CH into trouble with the OHRC (Ontario Human Rights Commission), because it has used it as the grounds on which to terminate the employment of one Connie Heintz, who realized herself to be a lesbian, after she inked her name on the pledge's bottom line. When CH forced Heintz out, she brought a complaint against them and the OHRC has ruled in her favour, ordering Christian Horizons to pay Heintz two years' wages and benefits, plus $23,000. in compensatory damages.
The OHRC has also ruled the CH must "develop and adopt an anti-discrimination and an anto-harassment policy" in compliance with Ontario's human rights legislation. The ruling has some people bleating now about the OHRC being "thought police" and whining that the ruling proves the commission is out to make everyone think the same way they (read 'the government') do. Lorne Gunter is one of those expressing outrage at the ruling. Gunter, a columnist at the Edmonton Journal and a commentator for both CBC Radio and Global TV, is calling the OHRC Ontario's "thought police". Gunter and all the others adding their voice to the chorus of complaints about the ruling should give it a rest.
The Commission is not trying to tell anyone how to think. Anyone who gets their jollies from being homophobic is free to think all the narrow-minded thoughts they want. They simply are not free to act on those thoughts. Whether the group takes government funding or not, the point is they are operating here in Ontario where we, as a society, are guided by principles of inclusive acceptance of all, including bigots. Even Gunter himself, if he stops to give it a rational thought or two, should actually be grateful that the OHRC ruled as it did. Their ruling represents a continued societal striving for equality and fairness for all. While Gunter feels himself to be a part of the moral majority, the power group, right now; he should keep in mind that when you back a system built on any kind of exclusion, there is never any guarantee that you might not one day find yourself on the wrong side of the guidelines used to set some apart. Arbitrary guidelines have a bad habit of being no more firm and lasting than a bowl of jello left out under a scorching summer sun.
Thank heavens for the OHRC, I say. It is doing the best it can to drag narrow-minded types like Gunter, kicking and screaming into the 21st century, in spite of themselves. I think their ruling on this case is cause for celebration.
The pledge requires the future employee to promise they will refrain from a list of proscribed behaviours that includes homosexual relationships, extra-marital dalliances, pre-marital intimacies, "endorsing" alcohol or cigarettes, and lying. Yep, lying. Of course, everyone who signs that pledge is telling the truth; the whole truth; and nothing but the truth. Aren't they?
It all makes me think of the staff members at the Catholic schools at which I taught through my years before the blackboard. They were all supposed to live a life that embodied all the tenets of the catholic faith, both on school property, and off it. The funny thing was that the vast majority of those staff members had just two children. They would never have used birth control to achieve that, which made it the strangest coincidence imaginable that all those schools hired all those people who all had the same limitations on their reproductive capabilities. They would all be eschewing birth control, since his holiness Benny continues to declare it to be a no-no. Wouldn't they?
Don't get me wrong. I'm quite sure there must be at least one or two staff members, both at those aforementioned schools, and at the residences run by CH, for whom the pledged living of christian values is actually more than a convenient fudging of the truth in order to land a job, but you know bloody well they are few and far between. For the rest of the employees and the pledge wielding employers, it's all hypocrisy.
That pledge has now gotten the CH into trouble with the OHRC (Ontario Human Rights Commission), because it has used it as the grounds on which to terminate the employment of one Connie Heintz, who realized herself to be a lesbian, after she inked her name on the pledge's bottom line. When CH forced Heintz out, she brought a complaint against them and the OHRC has ruled in her favour, ordering Christian Horizons to pay Heintz two years' wages and benefits, plus $23,000. in compensatory damages.
The OHRC has also ruled the CH must "develop and adopt an anti-discrimination and an anto-harassment policy" in compliance with Ontario's human rights legislation. The ruling has some people bleating now about the OHRC being "thought police" and whining that the ruling proves the commission is out to make everyone think the same way they (read 'the government') do. Lorne Gunter is one of those expressing outrage at the ruling. Gunter, a columnist at the Edmonton Journal and a commentator for both CBC Radio and Global TV, is calling the OHRC Ontario's "thought police". Gunter and all the others adding their voice to the chorus of complaints about the ruling should give it a rest.
The Commission is not trying to tell anyone how to think. Anyone who gets their jollies from being homophobic is free to think all the narrow-minded thoughts they want. They simply are not free to act on those thoughts. Whether the group takes government funding or not, the point is they are operating here in Ontario where we, as a society, are guided by principles of inclusive acceptance of all, including bigots. Even Gunter himself, if he stops to give it a rational thought or two, should actually be grateful that the OHRC ruled as it did. Their ruling represents a continued societal striving for equality and fairness for all. While Gunter feels himself to be a part of the moral majority, the power group, right now; he should keep in mind that when you back a system built on any kind of exclusion, there is never any guarantee that you might not one day find yourself on the wrong side of the guidelines used to set some apart. Arbitrary guidelines have a bad habit of being no more firm and lasting than a bowl of jello left out under a scorching summer sun.
Thank heavens for the OHRC, I say. It is doing the best it can to drag narrow-minded types like Gunter, kicking and screaming into the 21st century, in spite of themselves. I think their ruling on this case is cause for celebration.
posted by aka.alias @ 7:55 AM 1 Comments 
1 Comments:
I agree with you 100%. When I started to read your post, I was shocked that the Ontario government is using my tax dollars to fund an organization that discriminates. Just like the Catholic School Board, I think Christian Horizons should not remain under the employ of the government. No such organizations should be funded by the public purse unless they are open to the public -- in every way possible. And where the public purse is concerned, the government has every right to regulate.
Post a Comment
<< Home