I’m not commenting here because I have any great stake in the matter. I don’t even have cable and only have the vaguest notion of what a duck dynasty is.

I’m not sure where I picked up this adage — I’m guessing somewhere in my last 15 years of formal and informal schooling, but one step in critical thinking could be phrased as “imagine the situation in reverse.” This helps us to overcome confirmation bias – the phenomenon that we as human beings have an inbuilt tendency to automatically affirm information that supports our current beliefs and reject information to the contrary.

So here goes:

Individual’s contract suspended by non-Christian (secular) institution for “biblical” views

Individual’s contract suspended by Christian institution for “unbiblical” views*

If you think that second scenario doesn’t happen, I have some proverbial ocean front property in Arizona I’d like to sell you. Or, if you’re not in the real estate market, I could just send you some links to some recent firings.

I’m certainly not saying that second scenario above is right in every circumstance, especially considering the way some institutions deal with situations when they come up. But supposing that scenario for the sake of argument, if Christian institutions want to reserve the right to hire, fire, suspend, etc. based upon the views a person espouses, I don’t think the outrage from Christians over the current situation is warranted at all. Yet it seems that there are a lot of people who are upset by the first scenario but are fine with the second. And I consider that hypocrisy.

PS- There are plenty places I can’t teach for sheer virtue of my views as a Catholic. Feel free to show some moral outrage for me if you like. Or just conclude with me that such is life.

* biblical and unbiblical are in quotes here because I’m not claiming anyone’s views in this particular situation are either biblical or unbiblical, only they are considered so by someone involved