Did partisan politics deny The Boss rightful recognition? Sure sounds like it when American Idol Carrie Underwood gets a Congressional resolution in her honor, and Bruce’s proposed resolution gets voted down.
Using your celebrity status to promote condom use to prevent the spread of HIV in Africa is a good thing, right? The Catholic Church doesn’t think so.
A schoolteacher is fired for being pregnant and unwed. Big surprise here: she worked at a Catholic school. And this is what I love about the “pro-life” view embodied by this school and the Catholic church: They’ll talk about how women who face unintended or unwanted pregnancies should be brave, good religious followers and carry the pregnancy to term, and then they punish them for choosing to do so.
“I don’t understand how a religion that prides itself on being forgiving and on valuing life could terminate me because I’m pregnant and am choosing to have this baby,” said McCusker, who was fired last month. “I held the Catholic religion to a higher standard.”
But it’s all about morals:
The key issue in McCusker’s case, McCaffrey said, is that Catholic-school teachers don’t simply teach subjects like math and history. They are also expected to teach morals and must lead by example.
“It’s not like we’re saying that she is a sinner and can’t be a role model,” McCaffrey said. “But there’s a visible sign. She’s pregnant. To have children looking at that, and say it’s OK, is not the example the church wants to set.”
McCusker’s supporters, however, assert that the church is being hypocritical.
“Had she been a student in a Catholic institution, and a pregnant single woman, church authorities would have counseled her — indeed, may have even pressured her — to continue her pregnancy,” Eileen Moran, a member of Catholics for a Free Choice, said at the news conference. “Yet, as her employer, in spite of all the official pronouncements of being pro-child, pro-parent and pro-family, St. Rose fired her.”