The Pasadena, California, Director of Public Health, Dr. Eric Walsh, is being persecuted for his personal beliefs to the point that it appears he will lose his position as the pound of flesh to shut up the "social justice" fanatics.'
Let's take a walk back to last week when I first wrote about the assault on Dr. Walsh. Please make sure to read the links.
Understand that Dr. Walsh was asked to be the Pasadena City College commencement speaker as a second choice. The reason that he was second choice is because the original gentleman that was asked, Dustin Lance Black, a PCC alumnus, Academy Award winner and openly gay, was unceremoniously disinvited. I don't know if Mr. Black was going to speak about homosexuality primarily, but the college got the heebie jeebies due to the scandal involving former professor, Hugo Schwyzer. And it does not help that Mr. Black had some racy photos on the internets.
Enter Dr. Walsh.
He was invited in place of Mr. Black to deliver the commencement address.
But the "social justice" crowd, led by a group called Students For Social Justice, decided to find some dirt on Dr. Walsh.
And boy, did they.
As noted in the link above, this group found some sermons that Dr. Walsh had given as a part-time minister of the Altadena Seventh-day Adventist church. And at least one sermon was about the evils of homosexuality. Again, look at the link for more information.
And the "social justice" crowd whipped the Pasadena citizenry into self-righteous wanting to get rid of the guy. Not for anything work related, but what are his religious beliefs.
Before I continue, I have written a couple of posts calling him out by his name not for his views on homosexuality and homosexuals, but his performance as Pasadena Director of Public Health and they are here and here.http://rightviewfromtheleftcoast.blogspot.com/2013/11/pasadenas-idiocy-is-my-churchs-gain.html See, I care about what he does in his role as the Director of Public Health. What he says in his pulpit has not proven to be relevant.
But now that the "social justice" crowd has forced the city to have a full blown investigation of Dr. Walsh, of course they will find something, anything, to use when they do the inevitable and fire Dr. Walsh.
And it looks like they may have a smoking gun according to the local fish wrap, the Pasadena Star-News.
Yes, Dr. Walsh failed to file a disclosure form for outside income sources to prevent any potential conflict of interest. It is known as California form 700. It is not a bad thing, but the city had to know that he did not file the form from the time that he was hired in 2010. And it took until 2014 to discover this anomaly that could have been corrected under regular circumstances? Understand that Dr. Walsh is on administrative leave while the city manager, Michael Beck, completes an "investigation" that is supposed to focus only on whether the multiple controversial sermons affected his role as Public Health Director. But if there was no "investigation", no one would apparently know about Dr. Walsh' failure to file the California 700 form. That is what I get out of it.
I do not doubt that this is what is going to be used to rid the city of this otherwise decent employee. In this Star-News article it notes that Dr. Walsh has pretty much been an advocate for aspects of his job that probably conflicts with his religious views. Here is a money paragraph:
In contrast to his statements at the pulpit, at public events Walsh has spoken about the negative effects of discrimination and has championed progressive causes at the Public Health Department, including opening the state’s first city-run dental clinic for HIV patients.
See, his religious views did not affect his job as Public Health Director.
But the "social justice" police will have none of that.
Of course the AIDS Healthcare members chimed in at the city council meeting condemning Dr. Walsh as a pastor and saying, even though the evidence proves otherwise, that he just can't provide services unique to AIDS and or HIV positive patients.
A group from New York City, the Catholic League, weighed in on the issue because at least in one sermon, Dr. Walsh suggested that there are differences between Roman Catholics and Protestants. The Seventh-day Adventists are Protestant Christians. It may shock Bill Donohue that some Protestants still hold negative views about the Roman Catholic church, but there are. And again, I do not see any evidence that Dr. Walsh intentionally sought out Roman Catholics and openly or secretly discriminated against them due to them being Roman Catholic. But Mr. Donohue wants to discriminate as evidenced by this statement:
“The first I learned of Dr. Eric Walsh was last week when he was asked to give the commencement address at Pasadena City College. After reading some of his hateful, and astonishingly ignorant, statements on Catholicism, I wondered why anyone would invite him to speak anywhere, never mind a college. Dr. Walsh is not fit to be the head of Pasadena’s Public Health Department. It is not worth attempting to rebut the man’s bigotry, so outlandish is it. Anyone whose judgment is that impaired has no legitimate role to play in public life.”
Yes, I do agree that they are probably ignorant statements about the Roman Catholic church. But to say that because of that a person has "no legitimate role to play in public life" is also very ignorant.
Say, Mr. Donohue, what do you think of you coreligionist, actor Mel Gibson and his anti-Protestant and anti-Semitic views? Views based on his being raised a very ardent Roman Catholic. Are you happy that he has been shunned by the entertainment industry? That he cannot work and provide for his family? Get back to me, Mr Donohue.
If that is not enough, it appears that his own denomination is turning on him.
Once again in the Star-News, they report that the Southern California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists are not only saying that Dr. Walsh does not represent the views of the church, but that he is not even ordained or hold ministerial credentials of the church. Yet the Conference pays Dr. Walsh's salary.
Can I get a Whiskey? Tango? Foxtrot? on that one?!
Betty Cooney is a spokesman for the Conference and wrote this statement to the Star-News:
“He does not hold ministerial credentials from the Adventist Church, does not speak on behalf of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination, and as far as we know, does not represent his views as anything other than his own.”
Maybe not completely accurate. For you see, the SDA church is pretty clear about homosexuality according to their own 28 Fundamental Beliefs. It does not explicitly come out against homosexuality in general, but it is pretty clear that marriage only is the way to have sexual relations. And in this from Wikipedia, the fount of all information, they state that the church does in fact have a very strong stand against homosexuality. And yep, they do refer to the Roman Catholic church as The Great Whore of Babylon. So me thinks that Miss Cooney needs to take a primer on her denomination's basic beliefs.
So yes, it appears that through no fault of his own, Dr. Walsh was asked to be a replacement speaker at the PCC commencement as a second choice. And because the first choice was not properly vetted by the powers that be in PCC, Dr. Walsh has been the victim of "social justice".
It does not matter that there is no, I mean no evidence, that Dr. Walsh let his clearly very traditional if not unusual Christian beliefs affect his job as the Pasadena Director of Public Health.
A question I have is this.
What if PCC had invited Dr. Walsh in the first place, would there have been such a hue and cry from the "social justice" crowd? The Roman Catholics? Gay rights activists?
I think not.
But don't worry.
In the name of "social justice" a man that appeared to meet job requirements at the time of hire in 2010 and had no complaints about his job performance in any way will be ousted because of some people that needed a pound of flesh. The "social justice" crowd.
Showing posts with label Eric Walsh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eric Walsh. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 07, 2014
Friday, May 02, 2014
Hmm, A Lesson Not Learned In The Sterling Kerfuffle
OK, it appears that one thing about the whole Donald Sterling kerfuffle that I forgot to mention in this post is the following.
While I provided a pretty comprehensive history of Mr. Sterling's pretty public transgressions, the fact is that the revelations of his mistress, V. Stiviano, was done in private conversations that she was tape recording. In California, one can not tape a phone conversation unless both parties agree to it. Miss Stiviano claims that Mr. Sterling did approve of it. But we only have Miss Stiviano's word for it. So it is very possible that Miss Stiviano did the recording without sufficient approval of Mr. Sterling.
In other words, while there is ample history of Mr. Sterling's racism and misogyny, this is what has made the NBA seek to remove him as the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers.
Now, what a Pasadena city employee does when he is not on city time is coming back to bite him in much the same way as it did Mr. Sterling.
The Pasadena director of public health, Dr. Eric Walsh, was going to give the commencement speech at Pasadena City College later this month. Now Dr. Walsh replaced one Dustin Lance Black who is an Academy Award-winning screen writer and alumnus of PCC. And he happens to be an open homosexual. And there are racy photos of Mr. Black and a former boyfriend floating around the internets. And PCC found a way to "disinvite" him as this article notes. Now to be fair, PCC has already had a scandal of sorts with now former professor Hugo Schwyzwer and his inviting a porn actress to speak at one of his controversial classes. Read the link for why it was controversial. Now when PCC decided to "disinvite" Mr. Black, one can cut the college slack due to their previous seemingly inaction in the Schwyzer affair.
But not to this student group called Students For Social Justice.
Led by fourth year student Sarah Belknap, the group decided to take to the internets to find something dirty on Dr. Walsh.
I have to digress a moment on this point about Miss Belknap.
PCC is a two-year community college and Miss Belknap is in her fourth year. Maybe if she hit the books and study a little harder, she would take her social justice wares to a four year university. Just sayin. . .
Well, Dr. Walsh is a Seventh-Day Adventist preacher and needless to say, they found plenty of his sermons that were, well not exactly politically correct.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Dr. Walsh spoke on such topics as the evils of the one-time hit television show Will And Grace. The Will character was openly gay. And Dr. Walsh, associate pastor at Altadena Seventh-Day Adventist church, said this is in a sermon:
"Today you have whole shows like 'Will & Grace' where the whole theme is around gayness -- if there is such a thing. How does the devil do it?…A slippery slope, he doesn’t give you whole lot of it all at once, it's just a little bit at a time. And you become kind of immunized to something that was once revolting to American society.”
So, he is not a fan of Will And Grace and thinks that it sets a bad example for Americans. Again, this was not said in his capacity as the Pasadena director of public health but as a minister. In fact according to this in our local fish wrap, the Pasadena Star-News, Dr. Walsh spoke in his capacity as director of public health at All Saints Episcopal Church, a very modernist Episcopal congregation that has and does perform same-sex marriages. And he has spoken at the Mayor's prayer breakfast on the need to maintain the multicultural feel of Pasadena. And that discrimination can lead to public health problems. And he even quoted Oprah Winfrey and Tupac Shakur.
However, in the pulpit, he did not care for such people and groups that he believes are bringing down America's morality, such as it is.
In other words, in Dr. Walsh's capacity as director of public health, a job he has had since 2010, he is doing and saying all the right things. But as a minister, he is not sure all about the things he comes to understand are bringing down his nation and yes, his city.
In other words, to people like Miss Belknap and the Students For Social Justice ilk, people like Dr. Walsh who do find a way to thread the needle of his primary job for the city and his belief that God wants a different world, especially regarding moral issues, can not do both.
And the response to the social justice crowd is putting Dr. Walsh on paid administrative leave by city manager, Michael Beck, while the city "investigates" whether or not what he said as a private citizen would affect his job.
I put "investigates" in quotes because I am pretty certain that the city of Pasadena will find a way to make Dr. Walsh go away. They will be more afraid of the social justice crowd rather than whether or not Dr. Walsh has done a good job.
And what does this have to do with Donald Sterling?
How we have come to find out about both Mr. Sterling and Dr. Walsh.
A private and or series of private discussions are just that. Private. It does not give the right for someone to tape record it without permission of both parties. Even if in the end it is for some good. The law in California is very clear.
In the case of Dr. Walsh, he was unfortunately a victim of a college administration that got caught with it's pants down, so to speak. They disinvited an openly gay speaker for possibly having racy photos online. They asked Dr. Walsh to be a second choice. Because Mr. Black raised the "they don't want me cause I'm gay card" and whipped up the social justice crowd, Dr. Walsh not only has been scrapped as the commencement speaker, but Mr. Black, of course, was reinstated as the commencement speaker. And because of the social justice crowd they may cost Dr. Walsh his job because when he was on HIS OWN time, he spoke honestly, as he saw it on such hot-button so called social issues.
Mr. Sterling has a record as a racist and misogynist and one who openly discriminated against minorities and families with children in his rental properties. Dr. Walsh has no such record. But as a minister of the Gospel, as he sees it homosexuality is wrong and he spoke that truth. Mr. Sterling is going to be forced to sell his basketball team not for any of the past evils, but for what he said to a mistress on tape. Dr. Walsh will possibly lose his position as director of public health not for anything job related but what he has said outside his capacity of the director of public health.
The lesson we have not learned it appears is that nothing is private anymore. Nothing.
While I provided a pretty comprehensive history of Mr. Sterling's pretty public transgressions, the fact is that the revelations of his mistress, V. Stiviano, was done in private conversations that she was tape recording. In California, one can not tape a phone conversation unless both parties agree to it. Miss Stiviano claims that Mr. Sterling did approve of it. But we only have Miss Stiviano's word for it. So it is very possible that Miss Stiviano did the recording without sufficient approval of Mr. Sterling.
In other words, while there is ample history of Mr. Sterling's racism and misogyny, this is what has made the NBA seek to remove him as the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers.
Now, what a Pasadena city employee does when he is not on city time is coming back to bite him in much the same way as it did Mr. Sterling.
The Pasadena director of public health, Dr. Eric Walsh, was going to give the commencement speech at Pasadena City College later this month. Now Dr. Walsh replaced one Dustin Lance Black who is an Academy Award-winning screen writer and alumnus of PCC. And he happens to be an open homosexual. And there are racy photos of Mr. Black and a former boyfriend floating around the internets. And PCC found a way to "disinvite" him as this article notes. Now to be fair, PCC has already had a scandal of sorts with now former professor Hugo Schwyzwer and his inviting a porn actress to speak at one of his controversial classes. Read the link for why it was controversial. Now when PCC decided to "disinvite" Mr. Black, one can cut the college slack due to their previous seemingly inaction in the Schwyzer affair.
But not to this student group called Students For Social Justice.
Led by fourth year student Sarah Belknap, the group decided to take to the internets to find something dirty on Dr. Walsh.
I have to digress a moment on this point about Miss Belknap.
PCC is a two-year community college and Miss Belknap is in her fourth year. Maybe if she hit the books and study a little harder, she would take her social justice wares to a four year university. Just sayin. . .
Well, Dr. Walsh is a Seventh-Day Adventist preacher and needless to say, they found plenty of his sermons that were, well not exactly politically correct.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Dr. Walsh spoke on such topics as the evils of the one-time hit television show Will And Grace. The Will character was openly gay. And Dr. Walsh, associate pastor at Altadena Seventh-Day Adventist church, said this is in a sermon:
"Today you have whole shows like 'Will & Grace' where the whole theme is around gayness -- if there is such a thing. How does the devil do it?…A slippery slope, he doesn’t give you whole lot of it all at once, it's just a little bit at a time. And you become kind of immunized to something that was once revolting to American society.”
So, he is not a fan of Will And Grace and thinks that it sets a bad example for Americans. Again, this was not said in his capacity as the Pasadena director of public health but as a minister. In fact according to this in our local fish wrap, the Pasadena Star-News, Dr. Walsh spoke in his capacity as director of public health at All Saints Episcopal Church, a very modernist Episcopal congregation that has and does perform same-sex marriages. And he has spoken at the Mayor's prayer breakfast on the need to maintain the multicultural feel of Pasadena. And that discrimination can lead to public health problems. And he even quoted Oprah Winfrey and Tupac Shakur.
However, in the pulpit, he did not care for such people and groups that he believes are bringing down America's morality, such as it is.
In other words, in Dr. Walsh's capacity as director of public health, a job he has had since 2010, he is doing and saying all the right things. But as a minister, he is not sure all about the things he comes to understand are bringing down his nation and yes, his city.
In other words, to people like Miss Belknap and the Students For Social Justice ilk, people like Dr. Walsh who do find a way to thread the needle of his primary job for the city and his belief that God wants a different world, especially regarding moral issues, can not do both.
And the response to the social justice crowd is putting Dr. Walsh on paid administrative leave by city manager, Michael Beck, while the city "investigates" whether or not what he said as a private citizen would affect his job.
I put "investigates" in quotes because I am pretty certain that the city of Pasadena will find a way to make Dr. Walsh go away. They will be more afraid of the social justice crowd rather than whether or not Dr. Walsh has done a good job.
And what does this have to do with Donald Sterling?
How we have come to find out about both Mr. Sterling and Dr. Walsh.
A private and or series of private discussions are just that. Private. It does not give the right for someone to tape record it without permission of both parties. Even if in the end it is for some good. The law in California is very clear.
In the case of Dr. Walsh, he was unfortunately a victim of a college administration that got caught with it's pants down, so to speak. They disinvited an openly gay speaker for possibly having racy photos online. They asked Dr. Walsh to be a second choice. Because Mr. Black raised the "they don't want me cause I'm gay card" and whipped up the social justice crowd, Dr. Walsh not only has been scrapped as the commencement speaker, but Mr. Black, of course, was reinstated as the commencement speaker. And because of the social justice crowd they may cost Dr. Walsh his job because when he was on HIS OWN time, he spoke honestly, as he saw it on such hot-button so called social issues.
Mr. Sterling has a record as a racist and misogynist and one who openly discriminated against minorities and families with children in his rental properties. Dr. Walsh has no such record. But as a minister of the Gospel, as he sees it homosexuality is wrong and he spoke that truth. Mr. Sterling is going to be forced to sell his basketball team not for any of the past evils, but for what he said to a mistress on tape. Dr. Walsh will possibly lose his position as director of public health not for anything job related but what he has said outside his capacity of the director of public health.
The lesson we have not learned it appears is that nothing is private anymore. Nothing.
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