Correcting ‘Gay’ Activist Lies about Allstate’s Unjust Firing of Matt Barber

Illinois Department of Employment Security document affirming that Matt Barber was NOT fired for misconduct at Allstate Insurance Co. It states that Allstate fired Barber "because AN OUTSIDE ORGANIZATION HAD COMPLAINED ABOUT AN ARTICLE HE HAD WRITTEN WHILE ON HIS OWN TIME." Click on graphic to enlarge.

By Peter LaBarbera

Below is a longer version of an article I posted in Facebook responding to homosexual activist Alvin McEwen, who repeated an oft-used bit of “gay” misinformation about Allstate’s 2005 firing of pro-family advocate Matt Barber. (Barber sits on the Americans For Truth Board, is Associate Dean at Liberty University School of Law, and is Director of Cultural Affairs for the Liberty Counsel.) Alvin is a bitter fellow who — although purporting to factually correct alleged pro-family falsehoods — regularly dishes them out himself (go HERE to see him viciously slander me as “Porno Pete”). In posting a response to an AFA column by pro-family writer Jerry Newcombe (reprinted at bottom), McEwen writes:

Sorry but Mr. Newcombe is inaccurate about one part. Matt Barber used his company’s computer AND identified himself as an employee of the company [Allstate] in his column. That’s why he was fired.

Funny how I heard these same spurious “talking points” about Matt Barber’s firing from the mouth of Rick Garcia — formerly Illinois’ top homosexual activist before he was ousted by Equality Illinois. We were on a Chicago TV news program together and I was making the point that conservative Christians are now more likely to lose their jobs or face punishment on the job than homosexuals.

Of course, had Matt been a homosexual activist who was abruptly terminated after writing a column on his own time about “gay pride,” the liberal/”gay” outrage would have been through the roof — and Alvin would not be repeating Allstate’s misleading corporate “spin” as he does above.

Following is my correction of Alvin McEwen’s erroneous and tendentious “correction”:

Matt Barber is a good friend of mine, a Christian man of high integrity, and a Board Member for my organization, Americans For Truth. As one living in Illinois who was intricately familiar with Matt’s case, I want to set the record “straight” here and correct the lies that homosexual activists like Alvin McEwen repeatedly spew about his unjust firing.

Homosexual activist Alvin McEwen pushes a lie about the abrupt firing of Matt Barber by Allstate.

Barber was fired after writing a column (which was published by conservative websites) against the homosexual agenda — on his home computer, on a Saturday. He did NOT identify himself as an employee of Allstate, but a third-party blog publisher did so by mistake. A staffer with the homosexual lobby group Human Rights Campaign then “reported” Barber’s web article to Allstate’s HR depart, and Matt immediately was called in on a Friday afternoon. Ironically, he was told that Allstate “celebrates diversity,” and that his (traditional) values did not reflect those of Allstate. Barber was suspended and informed that he likely would be fired for writing the column. He was then escorted by Allstate security guards off the corporate grounds. Monday morning, Barber was canned over the telephone.

The Illinois Department of Employment Security [see graphic above] investigated the firing and found Barber innocent of misconduct; IDES made this judgment (emphasis theirs): “The claimant was discharged from ALLSTATE INS. CO. because AN OUTSIDE ORGANIZATION HAD COMPLAINED ABOUT AN ARTICLE HE HAD WRITTEN WHILE ON HIS OWN TIME.”

Furthermore, even if Barber had used his company laptop for personal use (which he did not), Allstate policy allowed such personal use — especially for employees who traveled frequently, as did Barber.

Barber sued Allstate and as the trial date approached, Allstate frantically contacted Matt’s attorneys and begged for a cash settlement so that the details of his discriminatory firing would not become public.

Needless to say, Allstate had to pay Barber a very significant sum of money to make the embarrassing scandal go away. Had the case gone forward, Allstate’s blatantly anti-Christian (and anti-conservative, anti-family) employment policies would have been exposed. This would have included Allstate’s self-serving lies designed to discredit Barber, which were disseminated to the media — and which Alvin McEwen cynically regurgitates here. — Peter LaBarbera, Americans For Truth.

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Column by Dr. Jerry Newcombe in AFA “One News Now”:

Must All Our Opinions Be Politically Correct?

By Dr. Jerry Newcombe,
Reprinted from OneNewsNow, 8/25/11

Those were his opinions, although they were not politically correct, and for expressing them, he was canned from the Fortune 500 company.

Thankfully, today, he works as an attorney fighting for religious liberties with the Orlando-based Liberty Counsel.

Liberty Counsel has now defended someone else, who got in trouble for expressing his own opinion, on his own time, with his own computer.

Last year’s “Teacher of the Year” at Mount Dora High School in central Florida (Jerry Buell) was suspended as a teacher because on his Facebook page, he expressed his disapproval of New York’s adoption of same-sex marriage.

Buell has for 22 years had a spotless record. But Chris Patton of Lake County Schools said, “We took the allegations seriously.”

Apparently, the allegations are that Buell is unfit to serve as a teacher in that he doesn’t agree with same-sex “marriage” about which he says (correctly), that it contradicts what the Bible says about marriage.

Patton went on to say, “All teachers are bound by a code of special ethics (and) this is a code ethics violation investigation.”

Buell was amazed at the charges: “It was my own personal comment on my own personal time on my own personal computer in my own personal house, exercising what I believed as a social studies teacher to be my First Amendment rights.”

I guess the First Amendment only applies these days to expressing politically correct opinions. Especially on an issue like same-sex marriage.

Remember Miss California in 2009?

Carrie Prejean appeared on her way to possibly winning the Miss USA pageant, until she made the fateful mistake of expressing a politically incorrect view on same-sex “marriage.”

When asked her views on same-sex marriage, she replied: “Well, I think it’s great that Americans are able to choose one way or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And, you know what, in my country, in my family, I think that, I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offense to anybody out there. But that’s how I was raised and I believe that it should be between a man and a woman.”

For that, it would appear she lost out on any chance of winning.

The moral of the story?

If your opinion is politically incorrect — especially on an issue like same-sex “marriage” — you’re best off keeping it to yourself. So much for the sacred right of conscience.

But this is America, and the sacred right of conscience is … well, just that, sacred.

Thomas Jefferson declared, “Almighty God has created the mind free.” Any attempt to force people into opinions they don’t share is wrong. Especially in America. Not that we’ve always gotten it right. But the ideal is great, and we seem to be losing that in our time.

The settlers of this country and the founders highly valued the sacred right of conscience. British North America was first settled by Christian dissidents seeking to worship Christ according to the dictates of conscience.

Dissident Puritan leader, Rev. Roger Williams, who out-Puritaned the Puritans in his goal to be a purist, founded Rhode Island on the premise that it would be a haven for people with various opinions: “I desired … it might be for a shelter for persons distressed for conscience.”

Williams stated, “the doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience, is most evidently and lamentably contrary to the doctrine of Christ Jesus the Prince of Peace.”

In 1648, in their document The American Church Manual, the Puritans wrote, “God alone is Lord of the conscience.”

In 1701, when William Penn founded the colony named in honor of his father (Pennsylvania), he declared in the charter, “Almighty God being the only Lord of Conscience,” therefore, the right of conscience was to be protected.

It’s still protected. You don’t see the Amish being drafted into our military.

In 1776, when Pennsylvania became a state, they stated in A DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE INHABITANTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH OR STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA, that “no authority” was in any way to interfere with “the right of conscience in the free exercise of religious worship.”

Examples like this from our history abound.

Perhaps some of the greatest affirmations of the sacred right of conscience come from George Washington himself. In 1789, President Washington said to a group representing the United Baptist Churches of Virginia:

“If I could now conceive that the general Government might ever be so administered as to render liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution….”

Why? Because Washington believed “that any man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience.”

George Washington and other founders said we must never violate the sacred right of conscience — certainly not for merely holding and stating unpopular opinions.

Thankfully, a positive outcome took place in Florida on the case of the Teacher of the Year on the very day of this writing. He prevailed, as did common sense. But why did he go through the whole ordeal in the first place?

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Dr. Jerry Newcombe is the senior producer and host of the television program, “Truth That Transforms with Dr. D. James Kennedy” (formerly “The Coral Ridge Hour”). He has also written or co-written 21 books, including “The Book That Made America: How the Bible Formed Our Nation.” Jerry co-wrote (with Dr. Peter Lillback) the bestselling, “George Washington’s Sacred Fire.”