Crystal Dixon firing upheld: Nebraska Family Council falsely exploited case as religious liberty / freedom of speech issue in order to attack Lincoln LGBT law

Crystal Dixon

From the Philidelphia Edge comes this:

     A federal appeals court has upheld the University of Toledo’s decision to fire the college’s vice president of human resources who was canned in 2008 after writing an article in a local newspaper where she condemned gay rights, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports. The University of Toledo is a public municipal university.
About four years ago, the Northwestern Ohio university fired Crystal Dixon over concerns about a column she wrote for the Toledo Free Press, where she said gays and lesbians have no claim to the civil rights movement...
     When her lawsuit went to court, U.S. District Judge David Katz ruled against her and dismissed the case.
     "The balance of [Dixon’s] interest in making a comment of public concern is clearly outweighed by the University’s interest as her employer in carrying out its own objectives," the judge wrote in an opinion. "Therefore, [Dixon] has failed to establish that her speech was protected. [Dixon] also claims that she was fired for violating an impermissibly vague speech policy. However, the damage she did to her ability to perform her job and to the University provide ample justification for her termination."
     After appealing Katz’s ruling, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled on Monday that Dixon’s column "contradicted the very policies she was charged with creating, promoting, and enforcing," and her defense of being a private citizen does not excuse her from her remarks against LGBT rights. The panel supported Katz’s decision and dismissed the case once again.

Nebraska Family Council's
Al Riskowski

     The Dixon case has been falsely cited by antigay organizations like the Nebraska Family Council, which referred to the case as a consequence of LGBT antidiscrimination ordinances both on NFC's website and before the Lincoln City Council.
     In fact, the ruling clearly shows that Dixon's termination had nothing to do with antidiscrimination ordinances, freedom of speech or religious liberty. Dixon publicly contradicted her employer's policies, which she was charged with implementing. Courts have long ruled that employers have no obligation to employ people who publicly subvert their lawful policies.
     Links to news articles about the case appear on NFC's website under the following introduction:

Below: NFC's Hannah Buell begins her brazen falsehood at about the 1:20 mark: "...She [Dixon] was fired for exercising her first amendment rights to write a column to a newspaper and in that column she was writing as a private citizen, but she expressed disagreement with a bill, an ordinance similar to this and expressed her disagreement in that form. She was fired for this."



Contrary to Hannah Buell's untruthful testimony to the Lincoln City Council, Dixon's letter did NOT mention any LGBT ordinances at all — either similar or dissimilar to the one under consideration by Lincoln's City Council. You may read the letter that the Nebraska Family Council misrepresented below.
     The Nebraska Family Council also distorted another case involving the boycott by gay patrons of a restaurant in West Hollywood after they found out that the Christian manager who posed as a friend to their community was secretly donating money to the Prop 8 effort to reverse marriage equality in California.

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I read with great interest Michael Miller's April 6 column, "Gay Rights and Wrongs."
I respectfully submit a different perspective for Miller and Toledo Free Press readers to consider. First, human beings, regardless of their choices in life, are of ultimate value to God and should be viewed the same by others. At the same time, one's personal choices lead to outcomes either positive or negative. As a Black woman who happens to be an alumnus of the University of Toledo's Graduate School, an employee and business owner, I take great umbrage at the notion that those choosing the homosexual lifestyle are "civil rights victims." Here's why. I cannot wake up tomorrow and not be a Black woman. I am genetically and biologically a Black woman and very pleased to be so as my Creator intended. The reference to the alleged benefits disparity at the University of Toledo was rather misleading. When the University of Toledo and former Medical University of Ohio merged, both entities had multiple contracts for different benefit plans at substantially different employee cost sharing levels. To suggest that homosexual employees on one campus are being denied benefits avoids the fact that ALL employees across the two campuses regardless of their sexual orientation, have different benefit plans. The university is working diligently to address this issue in a reasonable and cost-efficient manner, for all employees, not just one segment. My final and most important point. There is a divine order. God created human kind male and female (Genesis 1:27). God created humans with an inalienable right to choose. There are consequences for each of our choices, including those who violate God's divine order. It is base human nature to revolt and become indignant when the world or even God Himself, disagrees with our choice that violates His divine order. Jesus Christ loves the sinner but hates the sin (John 8:1-11.)