Cincinnati School Administrator Is Penalized for Supporting Marriage Equality
An assistant principal at a Catholic high school in Cincinnati is about to be fired because he wrote statements in support of marriage equality on his personal blog.
Mark Moroski
News.Cincinnati.com reports about the decision directed against this Purcell Marian High School staffer:
“The Archdiocese of Cincinnati placed Moroski on administrative leave Feb. 4 and plans to fire him, Moroski said. He says he has hired a lawyer.
“Moroski refused to take down his statements on the blog.
“ ‘I believe in Catholicism,’ Moroski said in an interview. ‘But my conscience will not permit me to recant my statement.
“ ‘I put it up there because I really truly honestly believe it,’ he added. ‘I’m absolutely willing to lose my job over this. The only difficult thing for me now is the students.’ ”
Moroski admitted that he knew he was making a statement that was not in accordance with church teachings about marriage, but his conscience directed him to do so.
Of course, church teaching clearly states that we must follow our consciences, so, in reality Moroski is following church teaching by stating his beliefs. In doing that, he is teaching his students an invaluable lesson about the importance of following one’s conscience–a very Catholic lesson.
On January 27th, Moroski wrote the following statements on his blog, www.mikemoroski.com:
“I unabashedly believe that gay people SHOULD be allowed to marry. Ethically, morally and legally I believe this. I spend a lot of my life trying to live as a Christian example of love for others, and my formation at Catholic grade school, high school, 3 Catholic Universities and employment at 2 Catholic high schools has informed my conscience to believe that gay marriage is NOT something of which to be afraid.”
Since then, Moroski has posted several times about his reflections on the situation, including this post, entitled “Prayer”:
“Many folks are beginning to say that they will pray for me to repent and realize the error in my ways.
“I, too, am praying for them to realize that this stance is NOT an attack on them or their church. It is about trying to make us all a little bit better. And who knows, I may be wrong in God’s eyes. I have no idea what God thinks. I just try to live my life in a way that doesn’t harm anyone. And I realize all of these other folks feel the same way about their lives. I respect that.
“But my conscience tells me that I am not doing anything wrong.
“Between the two camps of prayer, I fully expect that we will find God in the middle.”
Moroski’s case is similar to the New Zealand teacher who was fired last year for criticizing his principal’s derogatory comments about lesbian and gay parents. Unfortunately, it is similar to the increasing number of cases here in the United States where employees of Catholic institutions are being fired either because they support marriage equality or because they have married a same-gender partner.
Instead of teaching students about the primacy of conscience, the Archdiocese is instead teaching them about homophobia.
–Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Minsitry
One of the major arguments employed by the Religious Right (including many Bishops in our Church) is that gay rights represent an attack on the church that will lead to good christians being discriminated against (e.g. fired from their jobs) for expressing their faith. The argument is not without some merit and should always be addressed seriously as intolerance is not limited to one side. But how can these people not see that by sacking this man they are indulging in a breathtakingly crass hypocrisy?