In contrast to the teacher at a Catholic school, here is a Catholic teacher at a public school also suing.
ST. MARYS DEANERY — A fourth grade teacher from the Coldwater Exempted Village School District has filed a federal suit against two teachers’ unions over the fact that her compulsory union fees are used to promote abortion and homosexuality.
Kathy Hart, who is Catholic, has been a teacher in the Ohio public school system since August 1996. Hart sued the state’s largest teacher union for forcing her to pay compulsory union dues that are used to fund union activities that violate her religious faith.
National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys are providing Hart with free legal aid and filed the suit last month in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division.
The NEA had agreed to allow her dues to go to a charity they mutually agreed on but the Ohio Education Association (OEA) refused to do so.
Hart’s case follows a case involving another Ohio teacher who won a federal district court ruling saying that requiring her to pay dues to the National Education Association is a violation of her First Amendment Rights.
Carol Katter, who is also Catholic, sued to stop being forced to fund the organization because her money would be used to promote abortion. Katter, who is a mathematics and language arts instructor in the St. Mary’s district of Columbus, indicated she was told her dues could go to a charity but OEA officials eventually told her they couldn’t disseminate her dues elsewhere, because she couldn’t prove that her Catholic faith went against her membership in the union.
Quite the legal dodge since the Catholic faith has no problem with the idea of unions, just the cooperation with evil that the dues are going to. I guess Teacher’s unions supporting homosexual acts and abortion is there doing there part to reduce teacher/student ratios in the classroom.
12 comments
Some of our taxes are used for immoral purposes. But the government has a unique authority to levy taxes on its citizens, that a union does not hold over its members. The government also prints the money!
Additionally, our government supporting “health education” which may or may not include immoral teachings is at least within their scope of responsibility. The State does have a vested interest to encourage the health of its people, for example, even if they make mistakes along the way or have programs hijacked by partisan politics. The people do have a method for redress.
In contrast, unions have no business getting involved with abortion rights or the homosexual agenda.
One also does not have to pay taxes. One could choose to not to earn enough income to tax, for example. Impractical, yes, but not impossible. One does not necessarily have to pay taxes in order to be a citizen. (Actually, my family doesn’t PAY taxes, either, although we file them. Catholic family size + one income = Child Tax Credit Gold!) (SS and Medicare are non-negotiable, but they don’t go for immoral purposes.)
Teachers cannot opt out of the union, and must pay dues in order to work. They have an unfair monopoly over an entire profession.
Maybe the teacher’s unions will figure out that the school enrollment would rise, (and therefore they would have more job security) if immoral lifestyles were not promoted. 🙂 Of course the overpopulation “gospel” doesn’t help matters either.
Being in a teachers union has nothing to do with abortion and homosexuality. What does this union think they are doing.
Why doesn’t the union support some pro life organization instead?
This is tricky. After all we’re required to pay taxes (some of which goes to immoral things). Is the difference authority – the government is a civil authority so we must pay taxes even if they support evil things but unions aren’t?
The bishops must learn what unions in America are like now, and not teach / preach based on something they heard in a college class in 1968. Unions do not serve working people in any way; they exist solely for the sake of the union bosses and the bosses’ whims and ideologies.
Along with many State teachers unions, the National Education Association is also infested with a radical abortion and homosexual agenda.
Most of the leaders of the NEA and the State Teachers Unions are blinded by sin and inspired by the devil in their evil sinful agendas. They are the devils minions. They sugarcoat their sinful homosexaul agenda under the guise of “equality” and their murderous abortion agenda under the guise of womens “choice”.
Glenn
http://www.stgemmagalgani.com
Some of our taxes are used for immoral purposes. But the government has a unique authority to levy taxes on its citizens, that a union does not hold over its members. The government also prints the money!
Moreover, I think one can argue that there exists a tipping point of state-funded evil beyond which a Catholic may decide not to go and, in good conscience, refuse to pay taxes.
Just an FYI, St. Marys is a public school district in Ohio, not a Catholic school. St. Marys is the name of the town.
Ms. Hart won’t get any support from the Catholic Church, but will from the anti-union NRTW Committee. She asserts an unproven claim about the OEA. But, as an official of the bishops’ conference testified at a similar case long ago, if she has an objection to how some of her union dues money is spent (dues money different from federal political contributions, which is from a voluntary fund) her first duty is to actually show up for once at the union meeting, put her hand in the air in front of all her peers and say “Brother (Sister) Chairman, I move that …”
Ms. Hart’s unwillingness to go this route is what prevents her from winning Catholic Church support.
My sister-in-law is a fourth grade teacher at a different public school system in the same general area. She has refused to join any of the teachers unions since graduating college, but this year her school district insisted. She was one of only two teachers at her school who did not support Obama and she is livid that millions in dues money went to his campaign, as well as other left-wing, purely political causes (such as Prop 8). She says she would be happy to pay dues if the money went to school-related things. So far she has refused to sign any of the papers, but they will probably get signed “for” her because the union folks have been quite clear that she WILL join.
Thanks for posting this. I taught in a public school but wasn’t unionized b/c it was a charter. I started hearing about similar stories after I had already left teaching to raise my son. I really felt called to be in a public school at the time, but I’m going to have to consider all of this when/if I re-enter the profession.
In 1988 the US supreme court decided in favor of union members opting to not pay the portion of their dues that went to partisan political activities (Communication Workers of America v. Beck). This teacher’s case would seem to be a logical extension of that decision.