The letter in question is from "The Rev. Nathan Brunaugh" of Elkville and the title of this post is his closing line of the letter. He writes that Walt "has been on Poshard's hit list ever since the anti-gay remarks" in July 2004. This is clearly wrong, he has been on Poshard's _hit list since he fired Poshard when he used to work for him. "The Rev." goes on to say "I know Dr. Wendler. I have worshiped with him..."
I have written this before, but if you are not going to toe the line, your boss is going to give you the sack. Walt didn't choose to toe the line and now he is gone.
In his last line "The Rev." writes about how Poshard just wants a puppet and
a man who has no moral consistency between his private and public lives.One of the things that I find truly offensive about "born again" groups in Southern Illinois is this business accusing anyone who doesn't pray with them as being morally unfit. There are lots of great people out there who want to be Chancellor of SIUC. John Dunn for example can't do worse than Walt and I dare say he is just as morally fit.
If you want to blast Poshard that is great, but please none of this crap about how the next person (not man, it might be a woman - Gasp!) will not be morally fit. At least the next Chancellor will be smart enough to read the organization chart and figure out who is above him on it.
I bet you that Sam Goldman isn't morally fit either according to "The Rev." either. That blanket immoral stuff just hits me wrong.
Preaching to the choir here, I know the hardcore right wingers of Southern Illinois aren't going to read this little blog.
3 comments:
I go to church with my father sometimes. He's part of a Southern Baptist congregation and the preacher ususally rails against the "health and wealth" Cristians that don't folow his particular beliefs. Of course, this is the man who looks at Ted Kennedy as a guide for his beliefs and activities, too. If Kennedy's in favor of something, the preacher's said he's against it. The congregation cracked up at that one.
I agree that moral fitness is not a job qualification (moral turpitude might get you fired, unless you were gay, then sleeping with young gay person might allow you to stay and become a hero--real story of Rep. Gerry Studds).
However, Peter, in your post you made a judgment of "moral fitness" without any knowledge of the man
"John Dunn for example can't do worse than Walt and I dare say he is just as morally fit."
That is very much like what Poshard said about me when I was in a "controversy":
Apparently trying to defuse the situation, he said "I don't think Bean is a racist." (Gee, thanks for saying I'm NOT a racist on the front page of the newspaper!).
My wife, who obviously knows that, yes, I am not a racist, thought this was a silly statement based on absolutely no knowledge of me. "For all he knows, you are a racist. You aren't, but why do people make statements like that?"
The worst thing a "born-againer" can say about you is that you are "morally unfit."
Now that they have written diversity into every aspect of SIU, right down to transgender bathrooms, the worst thing one can be called by the "holier-than-thou" crowd IN the university is that you are against diversity. They know they possess what Thomas Sowell dubbed "a self-anointed vision."
My point: The moral zealots outside the university are irrelevant to what goes on inside. Watch out for the moral zealots on the inside who will sacrifice a good education and efficiency for the mental benzocaine of diversity-speak.
My point in the letter was that I was a personal friend of Dr. Wendler and that he was being fired for his personal religeous convictions because he allowed them to "come out" in his duties at the university. In today's academia this is the ultimate "heresy". How dare a man be consistent in his private and professional life! Religeon must be kept private, and a true professional cannot allow his "religeon" to effect him in his "secular" job.
Of course the problem with this is that everyone does it (yes even those who don't claim any religeon). That was the whole point of Bill Clinton scandal a few years ago.
My point - private and secular cannot be separated like Poshard seems to want. If a man is a cheat in private he will be a cheat in public eventually. Dr. Wendler is a honest man in private, and has been one in his duties at the university. For that reason he "had to go".
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