Frank Turek

Editor’s Note/Correction: our original story labeled Frank Turek as an “employee” of Cisco Systems. Turek was in fact a vendor with Cisco (with high marks for his performance). Thus he lacked the protections of an actual employee. This does not detract from the main story of Cisco’s hypocrisy and anti-Christian bigotry (we call it homo-fascism), which led Turek to be fired abruptly for his private, pro-traditional-marriage advocacy — by a company that champions “diversity.”  — Peter LaBarbera

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Below is a reprint of a Townhall.com column by Christian apologist Frank Turek, an eloquent defender of natural (i.e., real) marriage – who was recently fired as a vendor by Cisco Systems (408-526-4000) due to his off-the-job, pro-family advocacy. Turek’s sudden firing was instigated by a homosexual fellow-employee at Cisco who — acting like a homo-fascist — turned in Turek to the Cisco authorities (actually an HR exec), despite the latter’s stellar and completely professional work record.

Conservative columnist Mike Adams has written three terrific pieces about “diversity”-touting Cisco’s outrageous action. (Read them in order HERE, HERE and HERE.) Needless to say, if Turek were a practicing homosexual who had been canned, this would be a huge media story and Cisco would be contracting with the services of GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation).

I have never met Mr. Turek – I’ve only read some of his excellent columns – but I gather that he is a compassionate man who models the Christian ideal of speaking the Truth boldly, in love. One reason I deduce this is that while attending (undercover) the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force “Creating Change” meeting earlier this year, I listened as a homosexual activist described (to a room full of fellow “gay” activists) a church talk given by Turek that he had attended as a critic. The homosexual advocate described Turek’s presentation and demeanor as kind and bereft of malice. This particular LGBT activist works diligently to convert Christians to a pro-“gay rights” mindset, and yet – even as he opposed Turek’s ideas – he found no hatred for homosexuals in the man. (You can buy Turek’s book, “Correct, Not Politically Correct: How Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ Hurts Everyone” HERE; and watch him debate atheist Christopher Hitchens HERE; also see Turek’s outstanding Christian youth site here: http://crossexamined.org/.)

The bottom line for Christians and opponents of homosexuality who are not silent about their moral beliefs? If it’s OK to fire Frank Turek merely because he disagrees with homosexuality and “same-sex marriage,” then you, too, are vulnerable. Christians and all defenders of sexual normalcy: we have no other choice but to fight back against the emerging liberal homo-fascism — unless you are content to live as a muted serf in the land of the “free.” – Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org 

Write Cisco here:

Mr. John Chambers
Office of the President
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Mail Stop SJC10/5/4
300 East Tasman Drive
San Jose, California 95134

Phone: 408-526-4000; hit “0″ for operator

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Frank Turek’s column in Townhall: 

Sex at Work?

6/28/2011  Townhall.com

Are you supposed to have sex at work? I guess it depends on your profession, but for most of us the answer is “no.” Why then is corporate America obsessed with training about sex?

As described in several recent columns by Mike Adams, I was fired as a vendor by Cisco for my conservative beliefs about sex and marriage even though my beliefs were never expressed on the job. When a homosexual manager found out on the Internet that I had authored a book giving evidence that maintaining our current marriage laws would be best for society, he couldn’t tolerate me and requested I be fired. An HR executive canned me within hours without ever speaking to me. This happened despite the fact that the leadership and teambuilding programs I led always received high marks (even from the homosexual manager!).

How could an experienced HR professional commit such a blatant act of discrimination unless the Cisco culture was decidedly tilted left? Why didn’t Cisco’s relentless emphasis and training on “inclusion and diversity” serve to prevent this? Maybe it’s because “inclusion and diversity” means something different to corporate elites than to normal Americans. That’s why their training didn’t prevent the problem but actually created an environment of intolerance that led to the problem.

Cisco’s chief “Inclusion and Diversity” officer, Ms. Marilyn Nagel, had trouble on the phone defining what “inclusion and diversity” actually means at Cisco, so she sent me several links from the Cisco website. As in our conversation, I found no specific definition on the website but plenty of platitudes, such as Cisco is committed to “valuing and encouraging different perspectives, styles, thoughts, and ideas.”

If that’s the case, then why not value my “perspectives, styles, thoughts and ideas?”

Because only certain perspectives, styles, thoughts and ideas are approved, you see. “Inclusion and diversity” to corporate elites actually means exclusion for those that don’t agree with the approved views. Whoops, there goes “diversity.”

Shouldn’t the real intent of Cisco’s value of “inclusion and diversity” be to ensure that people in that diverse workforce work together cordially and professionally even when they inevitably disagree on certain political, moral or religious questions? It would seem so. In a large multicultural workforce, people need to work together despite political or religious differences. That’s a noble and necessary goal. It’s totalitarian, however, to subject people to “diversity” training and corporate sponsorships that go beyond teaching respect for people to advocacy of what they do in bed.

All employees should treat one another with kindness and respect because they are fellow human beings, not because of their sexual behavior. If people are to be respected simply on the basis of their behavior, then none of us qualify for respect because we have all behaved badly on occasion.

So instead of trying to force all employees to accept any sexual behavior—especially something as controversial as homosexuality—the inclusion and diversity police should be urging us to treat all people with respect simply because we are human beings. That’s all you need to be productive at work anyway.

But as soon as you start telling people from different religious and cultural backgrounds what they must think about homosexuality, you will offend and create conflict andr resentment. As a Christian, I am commanded to respect all people. That’s what I was doing at Cisco. But don’t tell me that I have to respect and celebrate what people do in bed. Don’t tell me that I must violate my conscience or my God in order to make widgets. That’s not only immoral and un-American; it’s manipulative and stupid. How does accepting homosexual behavior have anything to do with job productivity? Are we supposed to have sex at work?

There simply is no business reason to judge my beliefs about sexual behavior or anyone else’s. And even if some corporate nanny could dream up a reason, it would not justify the assault on an employee’s conscience or religion.

Notice that Cisco did not have a problem with my behavior. My job performance was deemed excellent, and I was “inclusive and diverse” by working in a respectful manner with people of all moral, religious and political views.

Cisco had a problem with my thoughts. Although I certainly accepted homosexuals, I committed the thought crime of disagreeing with homosexual behavior and homosexual political goals. So despite all their talk about “inclusion and diversity,” Cisco deemed my thoughts about something irrelevant to the workplace as grounds for immediate exclusion. Do you think they would have excluded me if I had pro-same-sex marriage thoughts? Of course not—that’s an approved view that Cisco actually sponsors (even though they deny it).

But people who don’t accept homosexual behavior don’t have to work at Cisco then!

True, they don’t. But if Cisco or any other company wants to make it a requirement that every employee and vendor personally accept the behavior of homosexuality or homosexual political goals such as same-sex marriage, then tell us directly. Broadcast it to the world. Cisco can’t and won’t because such a requirement would be a clear violation of the religious protections codified in the Civil Rights Act, and it would result in a mass exodus of employees and customers.

Instead, they create an oppressive culture of political correctness under the false banner of “inclusion and diversity” to achieve the same ends. They tell the world that they value and encourage “different perspectives, styles, thoughts, and ideas” while they punish or intimidate into silence people who have “different perspectives, styles, thoughts, and ideas.” While Cisco executives would never admit this, their actions reveal this twisted truth: Cisco values homosexual behavior more than honesty, freedom of religion and freedom of conscience.

Is it the same at your workplace? Are you tired of having to hide your conservative or religious beliefs as if you live in a totalitarian state rather than America? If you continue to cower in silence before an intolerant militant minority, it will only get worse. To paraphrase Edmund Burke, “All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing.” It’s time to do something—speak up.

From the Out & Equal website:

Out & Equal Workplace Advocates is proud to display our ever-increasing list of corporations who support LGBT workplace equality by encouraging and fostering their own employee resource groups (ERGs). With such valuable workplace groups in place, employees in one ERG can turn to leaders in other groups to share resources and establish good workplace practices for LGBT employees. LGBT employees trust their employers are keeping their interests in mind when making key business decisions that affect all employees…

True Out & Equal Workplace Leaders

1. Adobe Systems
2. Aetna
3. Agere Systems
4. Agilent Technologies
5. Allianz Life Insurance
6. Alston & Bird
7. American Express
8. AMR Corp. (American Airlines)
9. Anheuser-Busch
10. Apple Computer
11. Arnold & Porter
12. AT&T
13. Avaya
14. Bain & Company
15. Bank of America
16. Bausch & Lomb
17. Bell South
18. Best Buy
19. Boeing
20. BP America
21. Bright Horizons Family Solutions
22. Bristol-Myers Squibb
23. California State Automobile Association
24. Capital One Financial
25. Cargill
26. Carlson Companies
27. Charles Schwab
28. Chevron
29. ChoicePoint
30. Chubb
31. CIGNA
32. Cisco Systems
33. Citigroup
34. Clear Channel Communications
35. Clorox
36. CMP Media
37. CNA Insurance
38. Coca-Cola Company
39. Consolidated Edison
40. Coors Brewing
41. Corning
42. Credit Suisse First Boston
43. Cummins
44. Daimler Chrysler
45. Dell
46. Deloitte & Touche USA
47. Deutsche Bank
48. Dorsey & Whitney
49. Dow Chemical
50. DuPont
51. Eastman Kodak
52. Eli Lilly & Co.
53. Ernst & Young
54. Estee Lauder Companies
55. Faegre & Benson
56. Fannie Mae
57. Ford Motor Co.
58. Freescale Semiconductor
59. Gap Inc.
60. General Mills
61. General Motors
62. GlaxoSmithKline
63. Global Hyatt
64. Goldman Sachs Group
65. Google
66. Harvard Pilgrim Health Care
67. Heller Ehrman
68. Hewitt Associates
69. Hewlett-Packard
70. Honeywell International
71. Hospira
72. ING North America Insurance
73. Intel
74. IBM
75. Intuit
76. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
77. Jenner & Block
78. Johnson & Johnson
79. Kaiser Permanente
80. Keyspan
81. Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group
82. KPMG
83. Kraft Foods
84. Lehman Brothers Holdings
85. Levi Strauss & Co.
86. Lexmark International
87. Liz Claiborne
88. Lucent Technologies
89. McDermott Will & Emery
90. McKinsey & Co.
91. Mellon Financial
92. Merck & Co.
93. Merrill Lynch
94. MetLife
95. Microsoft
96. Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams
97. Morgan Stanley
98. Morrison & Foerster
99. Motorola
100. Nationwide
101. NCR Corp.
102. New York Times Co.
103. Nike
104. Nixon Peabody
105. Nordstrom
106. Northrop Grumman
107. Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe
108. Owens Corning
109. Pepsico
110. Pfizer
111. PG&E
112. Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman
113. Powell Goldstein
114. PriceWaterhouseCoopers
115. Prudential Financial
116. Raytheon
117. Replacements
118. SC Johnson & Son
119. Schering-Plough
120. Sears Holdings Corporation
121. Sempra Energy
122. Sprint Nextel
123. Starcom MediaVest
124. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide
125. State Street
126. Sun Microsystems
127. SunTrust Banks
128. Tech Data Corp.
129. The Olivia Companies
130. US Airways
131. Viacom
132. Visa International
133. Volkswagen of America
134. Wachovia
135. Walgreens
136. Wells Fargo
137. Whirlpool
138. Xerox