Here’s the Washington Post’s article on this matter.
This is the legislative information page for the legislator.
This legislator, Burns, is an African-American elected as a Democrat to the House of Delegates. He’s the founder and pastor of his own baptist church. The newspaper article says this about him:
What the hell are you talking about?
Wasn’t part of the point of not identifying the politician or his party in the OP supposed to get us to assume he was a Republican?
If not, never mind.
Consider, for instance, the sh!tstorm that descended upon the Miami Marlins when manager Ozzie Guillen expressed public support for Fidel Castro.
Hand 1: The business can make this decision if they want to, no question.
Hand 2: The government has no business pressuring businesses in this manner.
Hand 3: I think it’s a bad idea for a business to make this decision, even if it’s allowed.
Hand 4: If it’s just an employee acting in this manner, it won’t really have much of an effect; but if it’s management, I might alter my spending habits depending on whether I agree with the politics displayed.
And not having provided a link in the op, he can’t accuse anyone of being a lazy reader for making such an assumption…although those who know of his posting history would catch on to his gotcha.
No. The point, as I said in the OP and have repeated several times in subsequent posts, was to discuss the wisdom of a business owner – in this case, the team owner – from acceding to such a request. The political party of the politician had nothing to do with it, and is completely irrelevant to the situation, and I never brought it up.
How is that remotely a gotcha, or in any slight way deceptive?
Again, the focus of my question was on the merits of the business owner’s reaction. When a question came up about the politican’s use of his office, I posted the PDF of the letter he wrote. And again I said:
Hand 5: in this case, it’s clearly not management, but a player who gives away tickets to his team’s game could be considered to be acting as an ambassador for the team, in the same way that players who participate in stuff like Toys for Tots are. (Obviously Toys for Tots is utterly non-controversial).
Hand 6: But then how can a pro football player express his own opinion on anything?
I know this is completely off topic, but how are those anti-trust exemptions? I am not asking to suggest they aren’t, just to get some detail.
Democrat / Republican … doesn’t friggin’ matter anyway. This is a simple matter of another arrogant Christian demanding that it’s his way or the highway. Fuck him with a Democratic donkey-dick.
Actually, heh, I didn’t even notice Bricker was the OP until steronz’s posts prompted me to take a second look.
I cheerfully withdraw the comment.
As to the issue at hand, I figure Bisciotti would be well-served to do nothing in response, neither chastising nor praising the player. Any action taken by Bisciotti is likely to aggravate the situation and embroil him and the team in something that, currently, stands only to affect Burns himself. It’s possible Burns will get some short-term support, but the long-term odds aren’t on his side, and I doubt an issue like this is something Bisciotti wants to be linked to. If someone from the press insists on a statement, Bisciotti can say “Burns expressed his opinion, and that’s fine, but I’m going to concentrate on winning football games.” Unless Bisciotti is pro-SSM and wants to be remembered as such, I don’t see the upside in giving Burns the public contempt he deserves. Alternatively, if Bisciotti is anti-SSM, siding with Burns is likely to backfire five or ten years from now, where people remember him as the guy who penalized a star player in the name of bigotry.
Right. And if you extend this principle, then how many other people might be blocked from expressing their political opinions?
Take the victim out of the equation then. Let’s take a hypothetical player who joins a march against SSM while wearing his football jersey and carrying a sign that says “Fags as dads = child abuse.”
Would you object to the team owner firing said douchebag? I wouldn’t. He’s out there in public, as a representative of the team, bearing a message that’d be considered outright hateful by a large number of fans. If I were a team owner, I wouldn’t want that shitstorm on my hands.
And I think that brings me to how I’d answer Bricker’s question. All political speech is not equal, and having a blanket policy that prohibits employees from saying or doing anything controversial would be a nightmare. However, I’d want to be able to deal with douchebags on an individual basis. And that’s how things are right now, so that’s cool.
The delegate could have written a letter saying “I don’t think your players should support same sex marriage. Please punish this guy.” But he knew that wouldn’t go over well, so instead he tried to re-frame the debate to one about political speech in general, which was weaselly of him.
True… but I think the principle gets weak as you extend it. Most people don’t have the bully pulpit of a Ravens starting position. Most people don’t gain significant attention from their support of various causes. I’d be at least somewhat sympathetic to an argument that said, “As long as he’s wearing purple and giving away tickets to my games, he’s representing me,” but recognizing that this reasoning doesn’t apply tot he vast majority of the American public.
Okay, I can buy that. If you’re in uniform, there’s an implication of speaking for the organization. There’s an explicit reference to the employer if you’re wearing a jersey and giving away your employer’s promotional material.
How would you apply this to the Chik-Fil-A drive through guy? Should he have been fired?
Well, he became a public figure when his video went viral, which is a very possible outcome of posting your video on Youtube. But he didn’t identify his employer or represent himself as anything other than a private citizen.
It’s a close question, which is really the reason I posted this thread… reading good pro and con arguments helps me decide where I stand.
But in today’s world, if you become any kind of internet celebrity, it might be foreseeable for your employer to be identified by … netizens … resulting perhaps in embarrassment.
I guess we’re in the same boat.
Say’s you. Toy’s for Tots indoctrinates underprivileged children into a culture of socialism. I even hear it’s sometimes at tax payer expense, paying trained soldiers to stoop to the level of delivery men!
My point being how do you define controversial? If the NFL is going to impose limits on what their players can do or say based on what some minority of people find controversial wouldn’t that limit the players to only speaking a very short list of approved quotes.
As to what the owner should do with the letter, he should throw it out with the rest of his daily hate mail.
Well, I suppose the point is where to draw the line. I’m sure that given the opportunity, the NFL would come up with a reasonably rational policy on what it considers controversial and what it doesn’t. Right?