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Friday, June 05, 2020

Well, they got Tim Gordon.

Tim Gordon, the older Gordon brother lost his teaching job at a Catholic high school for Tweeting about BLM. I don't like the man. I think I've made that clear in the past. I like his younger brother even less but Gordon has 6 children and his eldest child has serious medical issues. I'm sorry for their sake.

 If a person is acting a fool on company time then okay, fire them. If a person is off work and represents on camera or in print that what he says is the formal or informal policy of his employer, or is approved of by his or her supervisor and that representation is not true, then okay, fire him. However, if you are not on company time while acting a fool, and by that I mean just mouthing off, not committing a crime--- or, making a statement in print or on camera and not mentioning your employer at all, then getting fired is unjust.

The only exception I can think of is when an employee signs a behavior agreement with the employer saying that the employee will not do anything that could cause the company embarrassment or harassment.

An already hostile boss  may get wind of what an employee  said or wrote and may look for ways to get rid of them but unless the employee has been gold bricking, still in the 90 day probation period or called into HR one too many times, the boss  won't have any legal  ammunition for that and the whole thing could lead to a fat lawsuit, even in a Right to Work state.  More likely if a boss was really offended by an employee's statement things at work could get hostile enough to make the employee quit.

I think this is a pretty good example of why we don't need married priests. How many married men hold their tongue or sensibly decline to make that Facebook post because they knew that if they got fired the rent wasn't going to pay itself and the kids have to eat? A priest needs to be ready to move to a new assignment with the speed of the Apostles if need be, remain detached from the world and teach the Faith no matter what. A married priest can't do that and might end up running away from his duties to the Lord's lambs in order to take care of his own.

Now back to Timothy Gordon. If you ever read his Tweets, his books or watch his videos then you know the Gordon boys love a fight and believe  in never backing down to opponents.  I'll bet he had enemies in the teacher's lounge and among the tuition paying parents that he didn't even know about. Apparently  about 100 students, parents and alumni signed an online petition objecting to him.  Gordon will probably find out what really went into the firing decision after talking to sympathetic former co-workers. Possibly this has been brewing for some time and he finally gave his enemies the ammo they needed to strike. It's also possible that threats were made against the school and/or faculty and the school head(s) panicked.  Huge corporations are rushing to pledge allegiance to BLM. If he expected his high school to stand behind him, it was a blunder.

To paraphrase something my  late father-in-law used to say, Gordon's alligator mouth wrote a  check that his Tweety bird home front had to cash. A lot of people are delighted to watch. I am nervous about bigger issue: if Gordon can be fired for what he wrote off company time then the same thing could happen to anybody. Gordon is still holding a good set of cards. He's young and has a law degree. Unless his state  Bar moves against him he could go back to practicing his profession. A Go Fund Me account has been set up for him.  His attacks on the SSPX will get him speaking engagements and sell books. Timothy Gordon will be okay. Jane or Joe Regular Person doesn't have all that to fall back on.