The conservative Christian group Focus on the Family announced this week that they are laying off about 200 workers. This news comes after about 50 employees were laid off several months ago, and according to The Colorado Independent, this is the third year that Focus has laid off employees due to budget cuts.
...202 jobs will be cut companywide — an estimated 20 percent of its workforce. Initial reports bring the total number of remaining employees to around 950...The cutbacks come just weeks after the group pumped more than half a million dollars into the successful effort to pass a gay-marriage ban in California.Critics are holding up the layoffs, which come just two months after the organization’s last round of dismissals, as a sad commentary on the true priorities of the ministry.
"If I were their membership I would be appalled,” said Mark Lewis, a longtime Colorado Springs activist who helped organize a Proposition 8 protest in Colorado Springs on Saturday. “That [Focus on the Family] would spend any money on anything that’s obviously going to get blocked in the courts is just sad. [Prop. 8] is guaranteed to lose, in the long run it doesn’t have a chance — it’s just a waste of money.”In all, Focus pumped $539,000 in cash and another $83,000 worth of non-monetary support into the measure to overturn a California Supreme Court ruling that allowed gays and lesbians to marry in that state. The group was the seventh-largest donor to the effort in the country. The cash contributions are equal to the salaries of 19 Coloradans earning the 2008 per capita income of $29,133.
In addition Elsa Prince, the auto parts heiress and longtime funder of conservative social causes who sits on the Focus on the Family board, contributed another $450,000 to Prop. 8.
So, let's analyze this situation. If Focus on the Family focuses on your family, they ruin your life by helping to strip you of your civil rights. And if they don't focus on your family, they ruin your life by laying you off and sending your family into major financial difficulties right before the holidays. It's exactly the kind of integrity, compassion, clear thinking and responsible prioritizing that Jesus would want, don't you think?
Maybe they should consider changing their name.
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6 comments:
Wow, just when I thought they couldn't get any lower.
Homosexuals are only interested in the idea of marriage. If you call the contract that is similar to marriage "gayriage", believe me, no one will fight over it.
I think homosexuals are interested in the idea of EQUALITY.
Yeah, I agree with Lilith. This isn't about coming up with a qualifier for the term "marriage." Homosexuals want to live in a culture that accepts and values them just as much as heterosexuals. (And, I'm sure if someone did call it "gayriage," the obvious homophobic connotations behind your coined term would incite a lot of anger and hurt).
I don't really ever want to get married. But if someone tried to tell me that I couldn't just because I was __________ instead of _________. I'd be PISSED.
Anonymous, you should probably stop getting your information and analysis of the gay community from Jim Quinn.
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