The Seattle Times (which, for some context, endorsed the Republican Rob McKenna for governor in last year's election) has come out with a strong editorial supporting the students at Eastside Catholic who are protesting the dismissal (the school says he resigned, though he denies it) of a popular vice principal after he entered into a same sex marriage:

DOESN’T matter whether Eastside Catholic vice principal Mark Zmuda resigned or was fired.  His departure had nothing to do with his job performance. The Archdiocese of Seattle and Zmuda’s fellow school leaders refused to tolerate his legal right to marry a man.

A Thursday protest by Eastside students should awaken Archbishop J. Peter Sartain and school president Sister Mary E. Tracy to the obvious: The hearts and minds of many young Catholics are changing. The students’ rebellion should provoke an institution that preaches compassion to also accept that individuals have a right to marry the person they love. . . . The church has a history of selectively enforcing its own doctrine. Is Eastside Catholic now going to investigate whether its teachers use contraception?

 

Eduardo M. Peñalver is the Allan R. Tessler Dean of the Cornell Law School. The views expressed in the piece are his own, and should not be attributed to Cornell University or Cornell Law School.

Also by this author
© 2024 Commonweal Magazine. All rights reserved. Design by Point Five. Site by Deck Fifty.