No voter speaks out after getting fired for anti-marriage equality views
A woman who was fired from her job as a children’s party entertainer after declaring her opposition to marriage equality has spoken out, dismissing her former employer’s claim she was a “homophobe”.
Canberra-based Madeleine was sacked by children’s party planner Madlin Sims after using the Facebook profile photo filter that read: “it’s okay to vote no.”
Sims took to Facebook to justify her decision, saying that her business had no place for hate speech.
“Advertising your desire to vote no for SSM is, in my eyes, hate speech,” she wrote.
“Voting no is homophobic. Advertising your homophobia is hate speech. As a business owner I can’t have somebody who publicly represents my business posting hate speech online.”
Madeleine, who is now a nanny, spoke out against the decision to fire her, in an interview with Sky News.
“I am the oldest of eight kids, I have helped in Sunday schools and church camps and kids camps,” she said.
“I’m a nanny at the moment, I’ve always worked with children, children are just what I know.
“To be called a homophobe and to say I’m a risk for the children I work with and the families of the children that I work with, I highly disagree.
“It is my opinion to vote ‘no’ and I don’t think that my job should be taken away from me just because I have an opinion that someone disagrees with. I don’t think I should’ve been fired.”
Since the story made headlines, SBS World News has reported that Sims’ has been harassed by those in the “no” camp, who found her phone number.
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This has not been handled well. This appears to have been a contractual relationship rather than a normal employment relationship. This should have been described as a termination of a contract due to concerns about social media activities linking Madlin Sims’ business to political views which were contradictory to her business model, which is what I understood was described when I heard these two interviewed on Triple J yesterday arvo.
Let’s not forget what’s being ignored here. The Catholic Church has threatened to sack all employees of Catholic-related businesses (ie not just church employees but aged care workers or nurses or ancilliary staff employed by large taxpayer-funded organisations like Southern Cross Homes or teachers in catholic schools) who marry their same sex partner if marriage equality gets up.
We hear about one person in one case but the mainstream media aren’t reporting about potentially hundreds or thousands of sackings by No voters.
The real story hear is that the Catholic Church is getting away with threatening to sack workers in the name of religious freedom at the same time as catholic priests are saying they’ll go to jail for refusing to dob in paedophile colleages in the name of religious freedom. Instead the No campaign is getting away with screaming victim status on behalf of one independent contractor who’s lost some business.
This is fucked. I’ve never felt worse about Australian politics or society.