This story is pretty insane, and it sounds like the employer acted out of greed and annoyance with the fact that this woman was requesting maternity leave, but his use of archaic religious ethics as a means to not only justify firing her but humiliate her as well should be just as, if not more, insulting to religious people as it is to the rest of us.
The couple sat close together with her right hand clasped in his left hand and her left arm cradling the 8-month-old daughter whose conception cost the woman her job.
The couple’s sin, according to her former employer, Southland Christian School in St. Cloud, Fla., is fornication — having sex before they got married.
Jarretta Hamilton and her husband of 16 months, Samuel Treftz, told TODAY’s Ann Curry Monday that the termination violated federal anti-discrimination laws. In addition, they allege in a pending lawsuit, the school’s principal, Jon Ennis, invaded Hamilton’s privacy by telling other teachers and the parents of her students the exact reason she was fired.
OK, so it's a religious school, she had sex before marriage, she got fired for it. Hey, they probably wanted to protect the kids from this Jezebel's influence, right? She sounds like she's probably young, someone who might make a questionable roll model for the kids an- oh. Wait. She's not a kid herself at all, but a freaking widowed mother of five.
Hamilton said her problems are all the result of her being honest. A widow with five children from her first marriage, she had gotten work as a teacher at Southland Christian School in January 2008. Meanwhile, she also met Treftz, and they planned a Feb. 20, 2009, wedding.
In April 2009, Hamilton and Treftz went together to Ennis and told him she would be taking maternity leave in the fall. She says Ennis first complained that it was difficult for the school to cover women on maternity leave.
“I was only requesting a standard six weeks maternity leave, and as the conversation progressed, he said, ‘I’m just trying to do the math here. When did you get married?’ ” Hamilton told Curry.
“I said Feb. 20,” she continued. “He said, ‘Well, did you conceive prior to marriage?’ I answered and I told him, ‘Yes.’ ”
What the hell? She goes on to explain that the only reason she even answered his question was because she was so shocked, which is a response I can personally attest to. The jackass who fired her is, of course, standing his ground on the subject - presumably because the pompous ass thinks he has a god on his side. She's suing and I honestly can't see how she might possibly lose. However, given the increase of theocratic BS I've been hearing about lately from different parts of the country, I'm honestly a bit concerned that she won't win. And that, my friends, is effing crazy.
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