Sunday, June 26, 2005

HOMOPHILIC INSURANCE COMPANY ATTACKS CHRISTIAN

A former manager with Allstate has sued the insurance giant, alleging the company, which financially supports homosexual advocacy groups, fired him solely because he wrote a column posted on several websites that was critical of same-sex marriage and espoused his Christian beliefs. J. Matt Barber was a manager in Allstate's Corporate Security Division, its investigative arm, at the Fortune 100 company's headquarters in Northbrook, Ill. Besides working for the insurance provider, Barber was and is a professional heavyweight boxer, a jazz drummer and a Web commentator. His columns have appeared on TheConservativeVoice.com, MensNewsDaily.com and others.

Though the column in question was written and posted in December, it wasn't until Jan. 31 that Barber was called into a meeting with two Human Resources officials, one of whom Barber says "slapped down" a printed copy of the column in front of him and asked if he had written it. Recognizing the piece, Barber confirmed he had written it on his own time, at his home and on his own computer. Barber claims he was told, "Here at Allstate we have a very diverse community."

Barber says the Human Resources assistant vice president told him the column didn't reflect Allstate's view and that he was suspended with pay. Barber was immediately ushered off company grounds - "which was humiliating," the former employee said. "I explained to Allstate that the article was a reflection of my personal Christian beliefs, and that I had every right to both write it and to have it published," Barber told WND. "I further explained that I had written the article while at home on my own time, that I never mentioned Allstate's name and that I neither directly nor indirectly suggested that Allstate shared my Christian beliefs or my views on same-sex marriage."

Three days later, on Feb. 3, Barber, who had worked for Allstate for five years, says he got a call informing him he was fired "for writing the article," he said. Now, with the help of the Christian Law Association and David Gibbs III, who represented Terri Schiavo's family in the final weeks of her life, Barber is challenging Allstate in federal court. According to an investigation by the state of Illinois' Department of Employment Security related to Barber's claim for unemployment benefits, an organization - likely a "gay"-rights group - complained to Allstate about the column. But how did the group connect Barber to the insurance company? It turns out one site that posted the column, MensNewsDaily.com, added to the bio line on the article the fact that Barber worked for Allstate. Barber says he did not include that fact in the original column submission but that the site "disclosed that without my knowledge or consent." According to Barber, he is somewhat well-known in the boxing field in Chicago, and Allstate would sometimes tout the fact that he worked for the company. The columnist told WND even if he had included a reference to Allstate in his bio, "I wasn't intimating that I was representing Allstate or that these were the views of Allstate."

Barber stressed to the unemployment office that he did not intend for the affiliation to be included in the bio. Allstate argued to the agency that Barber should not be given unemployment, but upon investigation, the agency agreed with Barber's contention and ruled he was entitled to the money. Said the agency's report: "The claimant was discharged from Allstate Insurance Company because an outside organization had complained about an article he had written while on his own time." The state agency also ruled Barber did not engage in misconduct, saying, "The term misconduct means the deliberate and willful violation of a reasonable rule or policy of the employer. . In this case, the claimant's action which resulted in his discharge was not deliberate and willful."

In the commentary piece, which Barber refers to as "the article that got me fired," he makes several arguments against same-sex marriage. Wrote Barber: "Marriage between one man and one woman, and the nuclear family have forever been cornerstones of civilized society. Regrettably, there are at present, many within the militant homosexual lobby who wish to take a sledge hammer to those cornerstones - many who hope to undermine both the historical and contemporary reality of marriage and family - many who, through judicial fiat, aim to circumvent the Constitution, the legislative process, and the overwhelming will of the people in an effort to redefine marriage. Accordingly, the unsolicited, oxymoronic and spurious expression 'same-sex marriage' has been forced into popular lexicon." ....

Barber - known in the boxing world as Matt "Bam Bam" Barber - says Allstate has a decidedly "pro-homosexual" philosophy, requiring employees to undergo "diversity training" and offering domestic partnership benefits. The training, Barber says, "is really indoctrination hostile toward thousands of employees' Christian beliefs."

The insurance company's foundation has donated money to homosexual-advocacy organizations, including the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the LAMBDA Legal Defense and Education Fund. A notice about the Allstate foundation says funds are given to "nonprofit organizations that are related to tolerance, diversity and inclusion."

Barber says he hopes consumers who hold traditional values will stop patronizing Allstate. Addressing those who do, Barber said, "You are helping to support an organization that brazenly and illegally discriminates against religious employees who do not blindly and silently toe the extremist, liberal line on official company policy - policy that is not just overtly pro-homosexual, but is demonstrably anti-family."

Gibbs is the lead attorney on the case. "To have Fortune 100 companies like Allstate firing people for expressing their sincerely held religious beliefs and even their personal viewpoints on their own time demonstrates just how out of kilter things have gotten," Gibbs told WND. "Allstate aggressively pushes and promotes the homosexual agenda in the name of tolerance, but the minute someone speaks up with what would be considered the traditional moral-values viewpoint, the tolerance disappears and it results in a termination."

Gibbs rhetorically asked if Allstate would take the same action against someone who put forth a pro-homosexual viewpoint. "The answer is absolutely not," he said. "The tolerance is only running one way." Such discriminatory action violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Gibbs contends.

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HUGE LOSSES OF FREE SPEECH HAVE CREPT UP ON US

In our country today we have to be very cautious as to what and how we say things for fear of "offending" someone. I can remember a time when if a person was "offended" he either moved on or took it in stride. Today we have to be mindful of what we say and how we say it. When I think of this, I realize that our very freedom has been compromised. If I say what I want to say and it "offends" someone, I am considered a criminal or a racist. At one time in this country, it did not matter if you spoke your opinion and it "offended" someone or some group, either they challenged you or just accepted it. It is our right to express our opinion according to Gods law and especially according to the First Amendment.

Present days have seen this basic freedom eroded to almost nothing. We watch what we say and are very meek around others so as to not insult them. Only 34 years ago, it was upon the very right we now hide that made our country make this drastic turn. In the 1970's, we made comments about and to others without fear of being "politically incorrect" or offensive. We could call a pot black if it was black. Today we cannot do this without first consulting with a higher authority to see if the words we use are generic enough to cover everyone without offending anyone. As a once great nation, we have failed the test of time by reverting back to being afraid of saying something that could be construed as being wrong or hateful.

How did we get to this beleaguered point of false history and "politically correct" ideas? To answer this we as a nation need only to look back and see how we went to the polls and cast our votes. It was not until recent elections that the majority remained silent and did nothing since it did not matter unless it hurt them as an individual. Only certain groups stood together and fought for what they wanted even when the majority wanted otherwise. We as a people did not do anything and we, as a people allowed our country to become a country ruled by the minority not the majority. Now even our children suffer the paranoid state of our fears. We see that a girl was arrested for having a pair of scissors in her school bag. How sad is this when the scissors are claimed to be a weapon? We have come down to the state of ignorance in these situations now. We have allowed this to happen and now even our children are not safe from our over zealous actions to be safe. Our freedoms have fallen by the wayside and we now live, as the terrorists have wanted, in fear. We have given up our sense of trust for safety that now has tread upon our children....

I am going to become "politically INCORRECT", here, I wonder why is it that groups, mostly the minorities can gather together by themselves and no other ethnic or racial group and it is all right? Yet if, a group of white people gathers together for whatever reason, it becomes a racist trend, why? I think the answer is rather simple. It seems that these groups cannot gather the publicity it wants and needs to get monies without crying racist. If a man were to begin a group for whites only to celebrate the birth of Christ, it would be called a racist meeting, yet if any minority did the exact same thing, it is a cultural thing. Why does this have to happen? I have had the opportunity to speak with a couple of black people from Europe and they often ask why does the American black use African-American? I plainly told them that it was just a way for them to claim to be discriminated against. Their response to that was as basic as anything I have ever heard, "They do not have to do that, they can always claim their color, why do anything else?" At this point I simply shrugged my shoulders since I could not debate or argue what they stated...

We have lost our way as a nation and each day that goes by we come closer to a socialistic government then ever before. We try and show that everybody is equal while the reality is that no one is equal, everybody is totally different from the other. We keep bringing up the idea that everyone has equal rights, this cannot be true. If everyone had equal rights, then there would not be rich and poor people. We all have the right to live, the right to die, but in-between their we have different rights. How can I say this? It is very simple to see. If I had money, I would have more rights than a poor person because I could buy more, I could influence more people, I could actually buy what I wanted. The poor person has to work for what he wants, he cannot just go out and buy what he wants, he has to earn it. In this light, how could we possibly be equal? How could we conceivably have equal rights? We are all given the opportunity for a better education, and today those chosen groups have a greater advantage to get a higher education. Some of us take advantage of this while others do not. How can a tire repairman even consider himself equal to a doctor? It is just not so. First of all, he does not have the same education, second, he does not have the same background, and third, he could not do what a doctor does. No two people are equal, something about them is different and that is what makes us ALL unequal. That is what makes us individuals and that is what makes the world go around.

Our news media almost tell us what to do and how to do it. If they think it is bad, they make a big production out of it. If a man does something the news media believes will make it high in standings, it will be news, even if it is bad. The news guides the people to harbor the opinion of the news show. The media sets up its program to show what is bad and what is good. The biggest trouble with that is the media has a tendency to be biased in its approach to the "news". If it does not get ratings, the news has no meaning. If the ratings are high due to the so-called controversy of the subject, the media places their spin on the coverage. If a certain group comes out in large numbers, the media will break its neck to make sure it covers the event. If an opposing group stands on the side in silence, the media briefly shows them and does not mention it much. Yet if that opposition group holds a rally and the other group comes in yelling and cursing, then the media covers it and will go as far as giving background support for the anger. It is at this point that the media becomes very biased and it uses that bias to control our private opinions by showing the controversy in such a way that we have to side with the group the media says is right even if it is wrong! This is not good at all.

We hear much about diversity today and how diverse we as a nation are. After hearing this we as individuals feel we have a great nation. But wait, how can we be diverse when many harbor fears of certain groups and even go as far as banning anything that relates to them? Here, as with being tolerant, we use the term to benefit one group and injure another. How can we be truly diverse when we declare even one group as being bad and deny that group its right to freely express its own ideas? We, again, fail at this term very badly. If we are truly diverse, we would not stop certain groups from displaying their symbols, even if they represent the bowls of hell. How can we allow the idea of diversity to flourish while at the very same time being totally oblivious of the truth?

Surely, we do not like to see the Nazi Party showing its symbols off for all to see. But how can we say we are a free society when we deny a group such as this the very rights we allow the group from the other side of the picture? It is the same as saying that it is right for the aces to feel the way they do, but it is wrong for the kings to feel the way they do. How can we determine what is right for one group while on the opposite side of the table we say it is wrong? In this instance, we have become a person that speaks out of both sides of their mouth, while denying one and allowing the other. How have we come to this point? We came here by way of being "dummied down". We have allowed others to tell us who is bad and who is good. We have fallen out of step of principles, which this nation was founded upon.

There once was a time that being gay meant you were happy, today it simply means that a person enjoys the same sex people more than they do the opposite sex. How sad is this that we have lost track of our principles and now we make exceptions so that those who have these feelings will not be offended. I am sorry, but I am offended by the fact that these people do what they do. Had GOD wanted us to like the same sex, he would not have created an opposite sex for us. Today we are not allowed to state our "opinions" like that due to being "offensive" to those we speak about. What is wrong here is that many people feel this way and they only state it when around families and friends. The majority of people today do not care for the "same sex marriages", marriage is an institution between a man and woman, and it was never meant to be a union of two people of the same sex. If this statement offends any one, live with it or go to another country.

If we continue this way, our nation will see the same fate as that of the Roman Empire, Napoleon, and other nations that have fallen in time. We cannot and should not allow "opinions" to rule our basic rights. If we allow this then people such as the anti-gun group will dictate to us what is right and what is wrong. If we allow the opinion of the few to guide the majority, as has happened in recent times, we all lose our basic rights to be offended. Being offended does not give that person or group the right to have their way, no matter how much it bothers them. If we bow down to this type of "terrorism", we all lose. If it "offends" you walk away, or just do not go there. I am offended by many things, but I do not get upset about it, if it is on TV, I turn it off, if it is the people I am around, I move on, if it is the way someone effects me, I ignore them. This is being "tolerant", not getting up there and calling a person in high authority and complaining until I get my way. Grant it, if it is a violation of law, then I have a right to complain, but if it does nothing but "offend" me, then that person or group has a right that I cannot and should not infringe upon, no matter how much I dislike it. This is true freedom amd if we do not go back to this, we ALL lose. Just to be sure that I do not get into trouble for making certain statements; this is based upon my own personal "OPINION".

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