The Cleveland Catholic diocese, which oversees five high schools, will have teachers sign a contract next year that includes an expanded “morality clause.”
The teachers voted to adopt the wording — it’s the same contract elementary school teachers in the diocese had to sign last year — but it’s just amazing to see what’s on this list of offenses that will get you fired from these Catholic schools:
- Publicly supporting or having an abortion
- Helping someone obtain an abortion
- Publicly supporting euthanasia or assisted suicide
- Publicly supporting embryonic stem cell research
- Publicly supporting or participating in in vitro fertilization
- Publicly supporting or participating in artificial insemination
- Publicly supporting or participating in surrogate parenthood
- Publicly supporting or having a vasectomy or tubal ligation
- Publicly supporting or having a “so-called homosexual or same-sex marriage”
- Publicly supporting or having sex outside of marriage
- Publicly supporting or participating in cohabitation
- Publicly supporting or participating in “transvestitism”
- Publicly supporting or participating in “transgenderism”
- Publicly supporting or participating in “sex reassignment”
- Publicly supporting or participating in any group that opposes Catholic doctrine
- Publicly supporting or watching porn
- “Serious dishonesty”
- Marrying someone whose previous marriage wasn’t annulled by the Church
- Sexting
So much for “Who am I to judge?“…
While a “high minority” of teachers objected to the contract, it’ll go into effect next school year. And it’ll surely lead to some dilemmas:
[Cleveland High School and Academy Lay Teachers Association President Mike] DeSantis said he had real concerns when he first saw the elementary school language last year. He told The Plain Dealer last spring that he was worried about the section prohibiting public support of gay marriage: What if a gay relative was having a ceremony and you are invited? Would it cost you your job if you go?
But he said the Diocese explained that rule to his union in detail.
“You are able to give support to family members,” he said. “If you have a child or sibling that has decided to live the gay lifestyle you can still be supportive of that individual, but you cannot come out and be supportive of that lifestyle in public.”
This is a disaster waiting to happen, given that most Catholics openly support birth control and marriage equality, and I’m guessing even more of them watch porn. That includes these teachers. So if they hide their support, they would be lying — another fireable offense. (Unless it’s not a “serious” lie, in which case I guess it’s okay… who knows where the line is drawn.)
These morality clauses have caused chaos in other Catholic school districts, pushing good teachers out of the profession.
It would be great to see the students find some way to protest the Big Brothering of their teachers’ private lives. The Church has every right to impose these rules, but it doesn’t mean everyone else has to support them or pretend they make any sense.
(Image via Shutterstock)
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