Makes me want to go get more insurance, with ALLSTATE!
Thanks for spreading the word, I am sure Allstate will appreciate all of
the free advertising and NEW business!
"Rob Wade" <rob_c_wade_03@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1124750047.022185.97460@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
: Did fiery essay get author fired?
:
: Allstate denies axing worker over anti-gay writing on the Web
:
:
:
:
:
:
: By Michael Higgins
: Tribune staff reporter
:
:
:
: This story contains corrected material, published Aug. 20, 2005.
:
: J. Matt Barber, a born-again Christian from Villa Park, hoped to get
: some reaction in December when he wrote a fiery online essay
denouncing
: same-sex marriage and the "destructive nature ... of the homosexual
: lifestyle."
:
: But the strongest response, Barber said, came from his employers at
: Allstate Corp. He said two supervisors slapped the article down in
: front of him, told him he was suspended without pay and had him
: escorted from the company grounds in Northbrook.
:
: "I'm thinking, `What business is this of yours?'" said Barber, 36, who
: had worked for Allstate for five years, mostly in corporate security.
: "This is something I did on my own time. This was my own viewpoint.
....
: [One supervisor] said, `Well, you know, here at Allstate we have a
very
: diverse community.'"
:
: Allstate fired Barber three days later, setting off a dispute that
: shows signs of becoming the next legal cause celebre among religious
: conservatives. As the issue becomes a growing rallying point among
: conservatives, Christian groups have protested Barber's fate on Web
: sites and in newsletters, generating what they said are more than
: 240,000 e-mails and an unknown number of phone calls to Allstate.
:
: Barber filed a lawsuit in May in federal court in Chicago alleging
that
: Allstate's action constituted discrimination on the basis of religion,
: a novel argument, some legal experts said.
:
: He is represented by David Gibbs III of the Florida-based Christian
Law
: Association, which represented Terri Schiavo's parents in their
: high-profile efforts to prevent her feeding tube from being removed.
:
: The story has attracted the attention of conservative Christian
: advocacy groups, such as the American Family Association. The group
: said its members have sent about 246,000 e-mails to Allstate since
June
: 28, demanding that the company apologize to Barber and rehire him with
: back pay.
:
: "Many, many consumers are changing insurance companies as a direct
: result of the information we have posted," said Randy Sharp, a
: spokesman for the association, based in Tupelo, Miss. "I think it's
: really going to explode when it goes to court."
:
: Allstate officials call the protests misguided. In court papers, they
: said Barber was not fired for his beliefs, but for using company
: "resources for his personal journalistic activities."
:
: Allstate spokesman Michael Trevino would not elaborate. But he said:
: "Allstate has never terminated an employee for expressing their
: personal views on their own time. Any allegation to that effect is
: false."
:
: Trevino would not say how many e-mails or phone calls the company has
: gotten, but he said Allstate, which insures 17 million households, had
: not found the protests disruptive.
:
: Barber said he wrote the articles at home but concedes that he
: sometimes sent personal e-mails, including some related to his
writing,
: from his company laptop. Allstate policy allowed this, he said,
: especially among employees who traveled frequently. Barber said he
made
: no more personal use of his laptop than his co-workers did.
:
: The dispute has become the latest in a series of conservative protests
: that have hit companies such as Kraft, a sponsor of the 2006 Gay Games
: in Chicago, and Procter & Gamble, which supported a local gay-rights
: proposal in Cincinnati.
:
: To his supporters, Barber is a sympathetic figure. He is a former
: police officer, onetime Chicago-area professional boxer--he used the
: nickname Matt "Bam Bam" Barber--and father of three. He has degrees in
: public policy and law from Regent University in Virginia, founded by
: religious broadcaster Pat Robertson.
:
: Barber said he started writing opinion essays last year and sending
: them to Web sites such as theconservativevoice.com and
: americanthinker.com.
:
: In the article "`Intolerance' Will Not Be Tolerated! The Gay Agenda
vs.
: Family Values," he called same-sex marriages make-believe,
"oxymoronic"
: and an example of "societal de-evolution." He praised "homosexual
: recovery organizations" and lambasted liberals for decrying the harm
: caused by tobacco, drugs and alcohol but not "the dreadful and
: preventable health related pitfalls, which stem from the homosexual
: lifestyle."
:
: "With this one in particular, I intended it to be hard-hitting,"
Barber
: said in an interview. "I am kind of fed up."
:
: Barber said he never mentioned his Allstate affiliation in the
: biographical information that accompanied his articles. But he said
: mensnewsdaily.com, which ran the same-sex marriage piece in December,
: knew where he worked and included the information without his
: permission.
:
: After the essay appeared, complaints came in to the Human Rights
: Campaign, a gay and lesbian advocacy group in Washington, D.C.
:
: The group found Barber's article biased and misinformed and criticized
: his confident pronouncements that sexual orientation is strictly a
: matter of choice, said spokesman Daryl Herrschaft.
:
: "He's relying on junk science to concoct a rationale for whatever he
: has already determined that he believes," Herrschaft said.
:
: The group contacted Allstate to ask whether it had endorsed Barber's
: article but did not voice an opinion on whether he should be fired,
: Herrschaft said.
:
: Allstate would not comment directly. But Trevino said protesters were
: wrong to put stock in a determination by the Illinois Department of
: Employment Security, which found that Barber was fired "because an
: outside organization had complained about an article he had written
: while on his own time."
:
: The department's finding isn't binding on any court, and state
: officials said they can't comment on it, or explain how much
: investigation they might have done, due to state confidentiality laws
: (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text). Barber
: has been looking for work since his firing six months ago, and he and
: his wife have put their house up for sale.
:
: "What [Allstate officials] have done here is reach from Allstate into
: my living room and say, `You can't think this way,'" Barber said.
:
: The strategy behind Barber's lawsuit is an unusual one, said Matthew
: Finkin, law professor at the University of Illinois at
: Urbana-Champaign. Contrary to popular belief, private companies in
: Illinois and in virtually every other state can fire workers for
saying
: things that embarrass the company--a fact many bloggers have learned
: the hard way, he said.
:
: Barber's theory is that his views on same-sex marriage constitute
: religious expression and thus are protected under federal civil rights
: laws.
:
: The suit is phrased accordingly, saying Barber "felt led of God to
: write and submit [the article] for online publication."
:
: Finkin said Barber's argument may be hampered by the fact that he does
: not quote Scripture to support his argument and instead roots his
: positions in statements about biology and traditional values.
: "Political polemics are not protected in Illinois," Finkin said.
:
: That legal distinction means little to Barber's supporters.
:
: Tom Minnery, vice president of public policy at Focus on the Family,
: said the group's true impact will be felt if Barber's story is
included
: on its largest radio broadcast, which reaches 2 million to 3 million
: listeners.
:
: "If Allstate does not do the right thing, we'll let a lot of people
: know what's going on," Minnery said.
:
.
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