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American Red Cross Fires Employee for Refusal to Celebrate “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month”

SAN DIEGO, August 5, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Christian employee working at the American Red Cross, after expressing his concerns to senior staff about an e-mail from the diversity office notifying him that June was “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month,” was fired from his job last month.

Concerned Women for America (CWFA) reported that Michael Hartman, who had worked at the Red Cross for eight months, received an e-mail in late May distributed by Chief Diversity Officer David Wilkins which declared, “It is my pleasure to announce that June will be recognized as Gay and Lesbian Pride Month at national headquarters . . .”
 
Hartman told CWFA that his immediate supervisor did not care that, as a Christian, Hartman was concerned; thereafter he voiced his consternation to senior officials. Hartman’s e-mail to senior management stated, “I would like to start by stating that I am a Christian not willing to compromise my beliefs to promote the agenda of the homosexual community. I would also like to say that I think it’s disgraceful that while most of us [at the Red Cross] are trying to save lives, a select few are using this organization to promote their own lifestyles which in my opinion are unacceptable.”

Hartman was immediately called into the regional office in Pomona, California, where he was reprimanded for the e-mail they deemed “not appropriate.” Hartman, who worked to promote and recruit for the Red Cross, felt convicted to pursue the matter further, deciding to contact the Southern California regional office by e-mail. In the e-mail, he compared how his superiors at Pomona had explained that they choose each month to celebrate some American minority group. “I’m still struggling to see a correlation between celebrating Great Americans and celebrating a sexual preference,” he said in his e-mail to the regional office. Hartman also suggested that the Red Cross honor its commitment to diversity by hosting a month to celebrate Christianity.

Hartman, immediately put on “administrative leave,” was called in for a meeting with the managers. After refusing to meet with Hartman because he had brought counsel, the administrators terminated him two days later.

“We are seeing an alarming double standard emerging in corporations and nonprofits,” said Concerned Women for America's Culture & Family Institute director Robert Knight. “If you are not in a specially protected group, you don't get the same consideration. More and more, Christians are being harshly disciplined or even fired for actions that would bring a slap on the wrist to a homosexual activist or feminist.”

Michael Hartman concluded to CWFA, “If the public knew what was going on within the Red Cross I have no doubt their unselfish support would screech to a halt.”

Last June, an employee of Allstate Insurance was also fired for writing comments in a non work related magazine that were critical of gay ‘marriage’.

See CWFA coverage:
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/8652/CFI/family/index.htm

See also
Allstate Fires Employee for Pro-Family Column Critical of Gay “Marriage”
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/jun/05062403.html

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