On Edward W. Haskell

What happens when there are no more gay music directors or school teachers to get fired? You go after unsympathetic bloggers on “faithful” sites like NCReg, like this one. In a few other reports, I saw a few oldies from St Blogs surface–people I hadn’t seen in years. Foam still at the mouth.

I used to see these efforts as something of Karl Rove. Yet glg’s and glb’s* have been complaining to Father in parishes for decades, if not centuries. This misadventure is of the same species. Bosses think firing people is an expression of their responsibility or control. But the truth is that when Father listens to gossip, he paints himself as weak, and a rung under tattletales in the ecclesiastical hierarchy.

The internet culture encourages Eddie Haskells among us. Church documents here and there too.

What’s the solution for a boss under pressure? Or in a situation in which, perhaps, termination could be on the line? They simply have to know the people who work for them. Know them better than the tattletales. If not, I don’t think a boss has the moral standing to make a decision on employment.

The last pastor I worked for had a useful policy for complaints. No signature, no desk space–only the circular file.

I certainly didn’t see eye to eye with Mr Shea on some things. I respected his decision to defect from the warmonger crowd in the middle of the last decade. As for Mrs Fisher, I recall she was in somebody’s good graces to get on the speaker list for the big World Family gig in Philadelphia a few years ago. They both were straight-shooters, and neither suffered fools lightly.

I lament when people get fired. Even for good reasons. But witch hunts are most distasteful.

• good little g–oh heck, you know my lingo