weird question, but with the MILB players now having a union could the Sox be trying to figure out a way to cut him that would not cause them to file a grievance?
Given the union would accuse the sox of cutting someone based of their beliefs and not their performance
AS THEY SHOULD!
Perhaps not in the eyes of employment law (for which adverse decisions are adverse decisions, I think), but in labor relations it is a very different thing to choose to pass on acquiring someone because you’re wary of their odious views (or the consequential PR snafu) and firing someone you employ because of their views.
Look, Dermody’s views are objectively harmful. But this is America. Almost everybody’s views are harmful in some respect, across boundaries of race, gender, sexuality, political affiliation, ability, national origin, etc. That’s part of life on expropriated land as a citizen of a global hegemon that employs strategic bombing more frequently than some countries conduct a census, usually rendering otherwise-inoffensive ideas (say, “human rights”) objectively harmful in the process, by press-ganging them into service as justifications for barbarism. That’s what the inequitable distribution of power does to ideas: it warps them.
(Bucking the trend, my own views are scrupulously perfect in every respect.)
Christianity is great. It’s also incredibly diverse and flexible enough to contain some strains (like, it seems pretty clear, Dermody’s Christianity) that are mostly just a flimsy pretense for bigotry against marginalized people. (One could say something similar about our leaders’ empty invocations of human rights as drone strikes rain down on Yemeni weddings.)
Was Christ’s message in the Gospels *really* that the socially marginalized or those who fail some sort of test of sexual respectability were damned? I’ve read the Bible (yup, the whole thing!) and I’d judge that the case is nearer the opposite.
Sounds like Matt Dermody disagrees with me. But I don’t think any of us think that an employer should be able to fire someone for doing theology badly or having terrible politics.
What happens when the Rockies’ ownership — which has stated publicly that they like acquiring players who are born again — releases someone for expressing solidarity with gay people, or for coming out? What would you want the Players’ Association to do in a case like that?