L'Affaire Eckern
People are allowed to contribute wherever cause they want just as others are allowed to choose whether or not they want to associate with them. But here's where it gets personal. If I had an employee who was contributing to the Nazi party, I would do my best to get him to leave. I would play Hava Nagila over the intercom, I would serve matzo ball soup daily, and I would show newsreels of Israel and the Galilee in the company breakroom. In other words, I would turn the place into a litmus test so that if he was anti-Semitic, he would want to leave and in a hurry, and if he wasn't, then he would want to stay.
The Scott Eckern Affair is indeed ironic, but the theatre managers should be allowed to hire and fire whomever they want. Voting Yes on 8 is one thing for the Artistic Director of just about any musical theatre company. Donating $1,000.00 to help it pass is another. Maybe they should have just sent him over to me.
I actually agree with you. He should have known better and I have tried to put it in the Jewish perspective. Yes, I would pressure and boycott a place that employed a contributing NAZI. And yet (You knew there was a "yet") I am uncomfortable--even allowing that it is all legal and everyone has the right to give and to boycott.
Here's the thing. We have a secret ballot. So how I vote is my business. But my political speech, in the form of money, is eternal public record. This has a chilling effect on freedom of speech.
Changing mores can bite one in the tush. Say I had contributed to a legalize marijuana initiative (I didn't, but just say I did) that could be brought up in my hearing for that Supreme Court nomination I've been waiting for. It seemed so appropriate in Berkeley in 1969 but then changed. What else? What other indiscretion might be found? I've got to think about that now. This is an unintended consequence of transparency.
A coworker said it best. "You have freedom of choice, but you also have to be free to accept the consequences."
I don't think people realized at the time that when they were innocently contributing to Proposition 8, they were also adding their name and business to a modern day version of Hollywood's 1947 blacklist.
Unfortunately, Opponents of Prop 8 have turned the Secretary of State's published of the list of contributors into just that.
Like you, I certainly wouldn't want someone working for me who contributes to the Nazi party but I'm not sure how that relates to Scott Eckern? Hopefully there is no attempt here to link the two together.
My guess is that contributors to the Nazi party don't have to worry about their contributions showing up on cal-access.sos.ca.gov.
Btw.. If your worried about who you work with, you'll probably have to look for a tattoo in the shape of a swastika or an employees occasional lapse into a goose step. Then you can break out the matzo ball soup.
The two relate, person long name, because they are both political viewpoints, though one is drastically more unseemly and unsavory than the other. I do like your strategy for when to start making matzo balls, and I may even add kugel to the mix depending on the severity of the case and the goose step.
Sorry about the long name. Yahoo apparently thinks I should be as cryptic as possible since it gave me this ID. :-(