HOLY $%&@!

Gay Teacher’s School Gave Him Lovely Wedding Present: They Fired Him!

Our friends at Truth Wins Out clued us in about Catholic-school music teacher Al Fischer, who got canned from the St. Ann School in St Louis after word of his same-sex marriage got out to the powers that be.

Fischer was apparently popular at St. Ann’s Catholic School (left) and quite open about being gay—he and his partner, Charlie Robin, attended school functions and staff parties as a couple. It wasn’t until a staffer in the archdiocese overheard Fischer mention he was marrying Robin in New York that anyone seemed to care.

Translation: You can ride the bus, so long as you sit in the back.

Fischer’s termination, sadly, will become effective on March 9, the same day the couple will tie the knot and celebrate their twentieth anniversary.

What really threw us, though, is how sweet Fischer is being about the whole thing: In a letter to families of students he wrote, ”I think the word has been well spread that this is not the fault of St. Ann School or its leadership, and I want to emphasize that I get that.” Fischer (right) added that both St. Ann’s principal and parish priest, “are still there for me in a big way.”

He hasn’t totally drunk the Catholic Kool-Aid, though.

”A family conversation about whether or not justice was served here could be a great thing,” he wrote. “I do not want the lesson from this for the kids to be, ‘Keep your mouth shut, hide who you are or what you think if it will get you in trouble.’”

Still, either Fischer has Stockholm Syndrome or he’s waaay more merciful and forgiving than us. We’d be more in line with Maryland lesbian Barbara Johnson, who threw a shit fit when her dumb-add priest refused to give her Communion at her own mother’s funeral service.

Reaction on St. Ann’s Facebook page appears mixed (though one poster suggested the school was deleting pro-gay comments).

Mark Baker wrote:

It’s great to see that we are no longer allowing our kids to be taught that violating natural law is okay. My only question is why was this not done sooner? I do not encourage the firing of employees, but why did this not come up sooner. Someone should have told him that having a boyfriend is wrong, and if he continued that lifestyle, he should have been dismissed long ago.

While Donald Panella commented:

While legal, I personally think firing a teacher for wanting to enter into a loving committed relationship is immoral and sets an awful example for your students. I went to Catholic schools from first grade through college, but if I have children, this makes me not want to send them to Catholic school.

Photo: Al Fischer, St Ann’s Catholic School

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