Saturday, January 11, 2014

Z-day and Eastside Catholic

this is the official logo
Gotta hand it to them, the kids at Eastside Catholic in Sammamish WA are not letting up.  That's the high school where their teacher and vice principal, Mark Zmuda, was fired for having married his (male) partner.  (We covered the story here).  Students continue to organize and protest, in a way we haven't seen with the other purges.

It doesn't look good when the Principal said he could stay if he only got a divorce.  This has gone national--here's the take from Bloomberg:
Sister Mary Tracy faced a crisis not of faith but of doctrine: The president of Eastside Catholicmiddle and high school near Seattle found herself last month in the awkward position of asking an employee to disobey one Catholic teaching to fulfill another. 
...Because gay marriage violates Catholic doctrine, last month [Zmuda] was fired (the school says he resigned). Just before the firing, however, Sister Mary offered a compromise, according to Zmuda: He could keep his job if he got a divorce. 
Divorce also violates church teachings, of course. “I was trying to hang onto him,” Sister Mary told a Seattle TV station, saying she was not proud of the suggestion and that the decision to fire Zmuda was the church’s, not the school’s. 
There’s a lesson for the church in Sister Mary’s offer. Yes, it is hypocritical -- but it also illustrates how Catholic creed isn’t static..... The question is how or whether Catholicism will evolve to avoid such self-inflicted wounds.
I'm going to bet that Sr Mary will not be Principal much longer.

And the students have called for a National "Z-day", asking people to wear orange (school color) on January 31st  in support of Mr Z and their call for justice.

A current review of the case is here.

Facebook page here.

Tumblr (with more links) here

twitter:  #KeepMrZ2013

3 comments:

IT said...

A columnist argues that the kids are winning

and a priest celebrates their acts in a call for dialogue and discernment



dr.primrose said...

A federal judge has declared Oklahoma's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional (though he's stayed his decision) - Federal judge strikes down Oklahoma ban on same-sex marriage.

It's somewhat ironic that the bans get knocked down so quickly in Oklahoma and Utah, which are about the reddest of the red states.

dr.primrose said...

Update (1-22-14) in N.Y. Times on this story - Gay Marriages Confront Catholic School Rules.