Terrible

High School Fires Teacher After Her Partner's Name Appeared In Her Mother's Obituary

The diocese says Carla Hale wasn't fired because she is gay, but rather because her partner's name appeared in the obituary under the convention of showing a spousal relationship, which is against church teachings. Go figure. So not only has she recently lost her mother, she is being punished for loving someone who happens to be female and including her in the memorial. As her attorney put it, 'It's like not being fired for being a woman but being fired because you're pregnant.' 19 years of service to teaching was ended because of small-minds. Looks like a few people need a broader education.

My thanks to George Takei for bringing this to my attention. I do so hope she wins her appeal of the grievance.

Bizarre, backward, and wrong

In China, English teaching is a whites-only club

Take, for example, Mike Lee and Will Evans, students from the U.S. and Canada, respectively, who applied to be English teachers through the New Development School, a teacher-placement agency in Beijing. Being fluent speakers of English, both believed they would make competitive candidates.

What they didn’t know is that recruiters would not be evaluating them just on their English fluency or academic credentials. Instead, they were judged primarily on physical appearance.

“We want him [pointing to Evans], but we don’t want you [to Lee],” the recruiter told them, as the two stood side by side at the front counter of the school. “Unfortunately, parents of our students don’t really want someone Asian to be teaching.”

Lee, who is Korean-American, was rejected from the school despite having previous experience teaching English as a second language (ESL). Evans, a white Canadian, was hired on the spot.

“I was shocked – back home this wouldn’t be acceptable,” Lee told NBC News. “I’ve never been discriminated (against) in that way.”

Then there's this:

A post by Vogue on a popular online forum and classifieds site, The Beijinger, explicitly spells out the phenomenon:

“In Beijing this is the general pecking order in terms of a company's recruitment (by Chinese managers):
1. White Americans/Canadians
2. White British
3. White Australians/New Zealanders and South Africans
4. European Nonnatives/Black Americans/Black British
5. American Asians/Black Aussies (Australians) and Kiwis (New Zealanders)/Filipinos/Africans”

The discrimination comes, Evans said, because Chinese parents simply do not believe a non-white person can possibly be a native speaker. Thus, this logic continues, hiring a white person is the simplest and easiest way to ensure that the teacher is truly fluent.

When is a guide for students going to college considered 'adult'? When it is written for gays...

Amazon stripping sales ranking from gay & lesbian books (via Anonymous Patron of LISNews)

Some of the books affected:

James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room
Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain
Jeanette Winterson's Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit
Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness
The Advocate College Guide for LGBT Students

to name a few. This also appears to include gay autobiographies. Amazon's explanation, as told to one writer of gay young adult novels who had this happen?

In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.
Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.
Best regards,
Ashlyn D
Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage

This seems to mostly affect the US portal, apparently. Check out the link above for more titles. You can also check out the LiveJournal community tracking this.