News & Views
NEWS & VIEWS Object|on, Please The president of the officially sponsored National Council of Catholic Laity broke with the NCCL board on the issue of amnesty. Mrs. John Eekstein...
...The Michigan Catholic in dropping his column has effectively eliminated Brian's civil right to 'gainful employment in human dignity' by its discriminatory action...
...printing costs by 37 percent...
...Brian continues to be employed by the Michigan Catholic as a writer and reporter...
...He was dropped as a columnist, but continued as a staff reporter...
...An appeal letter notes that postage costs have increased by 140 percent...
...She said that McNaught was still a staff member, although he was then a "week and two days overdue" from a two-weeks' vacation...
...That Detroit 'Canning' In the Sept...
...The Progressive warns that "unless we can raise almost $100,000 from our subscribers" it will be forced to suspend publication...
...He is above the law that applies to common men...
...Here it is: "Unregenerate, self-adulatory, negotiating for millions for his memoirs in which to erect a Nixon myth, Richard Nixon, who has degraded the Presidency, confessed to the obstruction of justice and over many months of concocting 'scenarios' of deception, need now make no accounting to the courts of justice, the American people, or to history...
...However, his case does involve outright and blatant discrimination resulting in irreparable damage to his career in the public and professional worlds of journalism, to his ability to seek promotion and advancement within his chosen profession, and his right to work in an environment which is free from unnecessary tension and antagonism...
...There is substantial evidence that his appointment as a columnist was based on a verbal and public understanding that legally could be construed as a contract...
...Ms...
...It's the editor's prerogative on any newspaper...
...Anything less than immediate, unconditional amnesty would be an unconscionable and vindictive act for a nation seeking to be an agent of healing and reconciliation...
...Publisher Morris Rubin says The Progressive is at "the grim point where the very survival of our magazine is at stake...
...Speaking for myself, personally," Mrs...
...The information, based on national news reports, turns out to be less than fully accurate...
...But Dignity's national office in Boston is not entirely sure...
...In another era Eugene V. Debs, pointing up the principle of equal justice, declared, 'So long as any man is in jail, I am in jail.' Now the challenge is: 'So long as Richard Nixon is free, why is any man in jail?'" Odds am/ Ends --Soaring costs have gotten to another journal of opinion...
...Cronyn declared that each day a doctor calls the Michigan Catholic to say that Brian McNaught is under medical care and will not be in that day...
...Nixon and Debs For a summing up of the Nixon Myth and the Nixon Challenge, what better than the brief letter to the New York Times from Henry Beetle Hough of the Vineyard Gazette out on the island...
...JOHN DEEDY...
...Then she separated herself from the recommendation...
...Editor Margaret Cronyn of the Catholic denied that discrimination based on McNaught's "sexual preference" was involved in the cancellation of the column...
...Ms...
...The column was dropped, she said, "just as columns in the past have been dropped and, no doubt, in the future will be dropped...
...Cronyn's editorial statement appeared to spike the notion that the action against McNaught contravened Detroit's charter providing equal rights for homosexuals...
...6 News & Views, it was stated that "columnist Brian NcNaught" of the Michigan Catholic, newspaper of the Detroit archdiocese, was "canned" after it was learned that he is president of Dignity/Detroit, an organization of Catholic homosexuals...
...John Eekstein conveyed the board's recommendation of "conditional amnesty" to President Ford, just prior to his announcement of precisely such an inadequate program...
...Ms...
...Cronyn declined comment on that statement during a phone conversation Sept...
...This will continue, he declared, "until such time as my Church, directed locally by Cardinal John Dearden, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, Bishop Joseph Schoenherr, Bishop Arthur Krawczyk and Bishop Joseph Imesch, makes a positive commitment to educate themselves and the community of the faithful to the horrible wound inflicted upon their gay brothers and sisters in the name of Christian decency and to work 8 I 11 October 1974:26 constructively for the elimination of the pain which we, as a Church, have caused...
...A statement joined in by Dignity's officers and by members of the Salvation Gay Ministry Task Force asks that some "essential facts" be borne in mind: "It is . . . important to understand that Brian had worked as a columnist and writer for the Michigan Catholic for four years after graduating from Marquette University's School of Journalism, and that Brian had been hired originally as a staff writer for the Michigan Catholic and that he was appointed a columnist for the Michigan Catholic one month after being hired...
...Therefore his case does not involve outright discrimination leading to dismissal of employment...
...She added that she did not know if a selfimposed fast can be construed as sick leave...
...Michigan Catholic staffers have a Guild contract...
...McNaught has been on a "fast of reparation" since Sept...
...That's the editor's job: to decide what will appear and not appear in the pages of this paper...
...paper costs, 60 percent and sRll rising...
...Eckstein wrote, "it seems abundantly clear that these men have suffered and anguished far too much already...
Vol. 101 • October 1974 • No. 2
