The National Organization for Marriage has picked its next “traditional marriage defender,” fired for expressing beliefs that gays deserve second-class citizenship. His name is Damian Goddard, he was a Canadian sportscaster and NOM probably chose him because they couldn’t find an American dumb enough to lose their job via Twitter.
When New York Rangers hockey player made a video in support of marriage equality, Todd Reynolds the vice president of Canadian hockey management group Uptown Sports sent out a flurry of tweets calling Avery’s support “misguided,” marriage equality “wrong” and his beliefs “just my personal viewpoint” adding, “I do not hate anyone.”
Canadian sportscaster Damian Goddard says the “awful, hateful things” tweeted in response to Reynolds made him feel compelled to help. And so in May he tweeted, “I completely and whole-heartedly support Todd Reynolds and his support for the traditional and true meaning of marriage.” Very soon after, the broadcast company where he worked tweeted, “Today’s tweet from Damian Goddard does not reflect the views of Rogers Sportsnet.” And the next day they fired him, saying “it had become clear that [Goddard] is not the right fit for our organization.”
In NOM’s video (the same kind that they made for Jerry “gays make me vomit” Buell and Frank “gays are pedophiliac terrorists” Turek), Goddard says that he filed a Human Rights complaint against his employer because, “If we do not do anything or say anything or put pressure on our government leaders to make sure that this does not happen again, if we don’t do that it’s going to get worse.”
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So, NOM is worried about Canadian employment practices now? Are they worried that Canada will export marriage equality over to the United States? Are they completely clueless that tweeting against marriage equality is like publicly advocating Jim Crow laws? If legalizing marriage equality will create many more cases like Damian Goddard, does NOM have hundreds of others who have lost their jobs just for “defending traditional marriage”?
The answer to all these questions is no. Because NOM know there’s no connection between marriage equality and what happened to Goddard. The high-profile TV personality was fired for making a negative political statement against his employer’s wishes, period. They didn’t want their company represented by a man who just told tens of thousands of viewers that he considers their marriages false, dishonest and wrong. Keeping him just would have been bad business, plain and simple.
Cam
How appropriate, they chose an unrepentant bigot as their poster boy. This isn’t about marriage. Because this man just attacked gays, not marriage.
Dallas David
According to these people, Goddard was just the weekend sportscaster. And now he’s got a plush job as a professional bigot with NOM.
http://www.benedictionblogson.com/2011/09/24/former-sportsnet-personality-damian-goddard-working-for-nom/
“Goddard, who worked in Canadian sports broadcasting for 15 of his 20 year career, says he was fired as a weekend sportscaster because of a tweet from his personal account May 10th.”
ke
This guy must lead a very complete life. And, he must be struggling with “something” to have this much passion.
Philip
Something tells me it won’t be long before he’s caught on camera at the airport with his RentBoy carrying his luggage…………
John McLaren
This dumb wingnut, part-time weekend sportscaster tried to make a big freedom of speech issue out of his firing. However the sports network fired him for other reasons and they had a file full of reprimands and warnings he was given long before he spoke about marriage equality. He did not get any sympathy from the jock viewers or Human Rights Commission in Canada. Besides, same-sex marriage is a federal law in Canada since 2005. Nothing he says will ever change s-s marriage laws protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Supreme Court. NOM must be desperate by using a non-American to plead their case. Damian is still not back on the air anywhere in Canada.
anonymous
One way to help stop of the spread on NOM trash would be for all of us to sign-up for their email action alerts, and the report every single one as spam. A coordinated campaign could really do wonders in getting their email solicitations blocked by all sorts of ISPs.
Brittany
He was speaking out for something he believed in, and he was persecuted for it. Not about marriage? This was entirely about marriage. He believes something, just as you believe something, and FREEDOM OF SPEECH dictates that he should be allowed to announce his beliefs (as all of you are). He should not have been fired, regardless of bad business, because (especially the media) should contain people who are not afraid to step out of the bounds of conformity. Hate is a two way street, and you’re sprinting up your side of it.