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CajunRick
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Posted: Fri Jan 26th, 2007 02:46 pm |
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Columbus, Jan 26, 2007 / 11:45 am (CNA).- A Catholic teacher in Ohio was told she could only be exempt from paying union dues to the Ohio Education Association (OEA), if she changed religions. The teacher had requested and exemption after learning that the dues would assist in the promotion of abortion.
Carol Katter, a mathematics and language arts instructor in the St. Mary’s district, filed a federal complaint in the U.S. District Court in Columbus this week over an Ohio law that prevents her from diverting her dues from a union that supports abortion on demand, reported CNSNews.com.
The state law allows only those public employees who belong to two particular denominations, who have history of objection to union membership — Seventh-Day Adventist and Mennonite — the right to claim religious objection to paying union dues.
Katter filed the complaint against top officials of the State Employment Relations Board (SERB) for religious discrimination. She filed a related charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against her union. She claims a union official told her to pay forced dues or "change religions."
Katter's complaint says the Ohio statute amounts to an unconstitutional establishment of religion. She wants a federal injunction prohibiting SERB from further enforcing the law against other state employees.
Katter explained that her request was turned down "basically because I could not come up with proof that my individual church -- not the Catholic faith, but my individual church -- had a record of anyone having successfully fought a union. In my little parish church, no one's ever done this, and that's what threw it out."
The above article is reposted with permission from the Catholic News Agency.
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susiedear
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| Joined: | Thu Oct 12th, 2006 |
| Location: | Twin Cities, Minnesota USA |
| Posts: | 186 |
| First Name: | Elizabeth | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Pentecostal / Evangelical / Catholic! |
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Posted: Fri Jan 26th, 2007 05:40 pm |
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Oh, my goodness. Your post, Rick, alarms me because I am a public school teacher who also pays union dues in order to get reduced liability insurance and union backing in the event that a lawsuit is filed against me. Unfortunately, teachers need this kind of protection because all it takes is a small complaint for a lawsuit to be filed. I co-teach one class with a special ed teacher and a lawsuit was filed against her for taking away an ipod from a student (violation of the student's emotional well-being and personal space). The suit was eventually was thrown out, but it took a while for that to happen.
I don't know if my union supports abortion, but it wouldn't surprise me. I'll have to find out.
Elizabeth
____________________
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life. St. Augustine
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CajunRick
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Posted: Fri Jan 26th, 2007 08:04 pm |
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susiedear wrote: I don't know if my union supports abortion, but it wouldn't surprise me. I'll have to find out.
The NEA supports abortion, so if your union in any way pays funds to NEA, it supports abortion.
I understand that you are paying dues in order to obtain liability insurance, so your situation is quite different from mine, but I have refused to pay dues to AARP and the American Diabetes Association because of their support of embryonic stem cell research.
It's possible you may be allowed to be a member of your local union and not the national union. This is something you'll just have to look into, and then discuss with your priest before making what might be a very difficult decision.
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