Removal of woman referee by religious school has some crying foul

[DS1]

Source: The Kansas City Star

Just minutes before tip-off, basketball referee Michelle Campbell was ready to take the court. Shoes laced up, shirt tucked in, whistle in hand.

Then she noticed the discussion between her officiating partner and the school’s athletic director.

Finally, Campbell got the news: She wouldn’t be officiating the boys’ high school basketball game. Because she’s a woman.

The game was at St. Mary’s Academy, a private religious school that sits on a sprawling campus about 25 miles northwest of Topeka. Before the game started, a school administrator approached Campbell’s officiating partner, Darin Putthoff of Topeka, and told him a woman could not serve as referee.

That would be putting a woman in a position of authority over boys, he was told — a scenario that was contrary to beliefs at St. Mary’s Academy.

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/487355.html

---

Whoooooooaa KANSAS!

[gaspee]

1. Oh yeah

There's no such thing as discrimination against women. And surely not coming from the religious community.

:sarcasm:

[Hobarticus]

2. Well, at least the other refs did the right thing:

For Fred Shockey, the message that came from the school that day was far different.

A basketball official who lives in Wamego, Kan., Shockey worked two games at St. Mary’s just before Campbell’s game. He was getting ready to leave when the school’s athletic director approached him and said there had been an emergency.

The school needed Shockey to stay and referee another game. Reluctantly, Shockey agreed to do so — until he found out what the emergency was.

In a show of solidarity, Shockey and Putthoff walked off the court with Campbell.

“I said, ‘There’s no way I’m staying,’ ” Shockey said. “I kept going, ‘Wow. Wow.’

“I was so disgusted.”

[northzax]

4. well, someone stayed

and reffed with the school's athletic director? that's insane.

[Hobarticus]

7. It's insane that it would happen in the first place.

But I'm interested to see what happens next. St. Mary's AD just opened up a big-ass can of worms. They may not be able to compete in the High School Activities Association, anymore.

[northzax]

8. hm, I wager

that after some negotiations, the AD gets fired and it is all written over as a 'misunderstanding'

whaddya bet?

it is worth noting that St. Mary's is not accredited by, well, anyone but themselves. odd.

[Hobarticus]

9. I'd wager that St. Mary's will protect this douchebag...

They'll offer a lukewarm apology, negotiate to maintain their status, make a donation, and hope it goes away quietly.

[lumberjack_jeff]

6. Kudos to Shockey and Puthoff. n/t

[northzax]

3. I see no reason then

why St. Mary's Academy can't simply forfeit that particular game.

I remember in high school we had a Seventh Day Adventist school in our conference. Despite putting out some great athletes and teams, they could never make the playoffs because they refused to play on friday nights or saturday days. so they announced that in advance and their spot went to the next team. and we always played on thursdays instead of fridays. no biggie.

if this was, as it appears, an official state-sanctioned game, then St. Mary's has no leg to stand on. the state High School Activities Association hires and certifies referrees and assigns them to games, probably somewhat at random. if St. MAry's wants to be part of that system, they get hte referees assigned to their games.

[Hobarticus]

5. Sounds like the High School Activities Association

is planning to "reevaluate" St. Mary's status.

St. Mary's isn't a member, but is on the "approved" list, meaning that members can play St. Mary's. Interesting to see how this pans out.

[DrZeeLit]

13. No, that's not a religious belief. It's a "preference."

Plenty of Catholic schools employ women as principals -- authorities over males in the school.

Seventh Day Adventists are consistent with keeping the Sabbath holy -- which is a very important belief in their religion.

This particular St. Mary's needs to do some explaining.
I assume they have an all-male staff?

[LiberalFighter]

10. That would be putting a woman in a position of authority over boys?

How about:

The mothers or grandmothers of those boys?

Did any of the students grow up with nannies?

Female nurses and possibly female doctors? Oh! Oh! Oh! Are the nurses at their facility female or male?



Do they require the parents/students to sign a contract that when the students go out into the world seeking employment that they can't have a woman as a boss?

[Iris]

12. just one more reason not go to have a kid

he might be a boy and then I'd have a built in "boss"!

[ozone_man]

16. Don't indoctrine him with religion

and he'll probably turn out to be respectful of women. Religion does not provide good role models for men.

[Iris]

17. nor women, for that matter.

good point! :)

[ladywnch]

11. track the graduates from this school. I wonder if some of their

clubs are future wife beaters of america, future misogynists of america maybe? I guess there are no female faculty there either which now opens them up to an EEOC lawsuit.....which they deserve!

[RamboLiberal]

14. Bet there are a number of future Republicans in that group

btw, I like the response from one of the refs in the comments from this article about the incident.

I officiated the two games prior to the games in question. I was approached and told there was an emergency with one of the officials. When I realized that "emergency" was that she was a Woman...... I walked out with Michelle & Darin.

I served on Active Duty in the Army for eleven years until I suffered a Severe Neck Injury during training In a Combat Zone. I have led, in a Combat Zone, some of the finest women this nation has produced and I have also been LED, in a Combat Zone, by some of strongest women this nation has to offer.

I also have two daughters at home who I apologized to when I got home because their DADDY worked for an employer who believes a woman's place is where the man tells her to be. Which is NOT WHAT I STAND FOR!

St Marys Academy refused to let a woman referee a boy's basketball game for NO REASON other than she is a woman. When does religious freedom OVERRIDE a woman'ability to WORK.

I was so disgusted by the money they paid me that I gave the waitress at "Froggy's Place" in St Marys a $41 tip (my game fees minus lunch) to this young lady who was working hard on a saturday afternoon to better her life....... I told her it was from St Marys academy.

http://www.cjonline.com/stories/021008/pre_245553740.shtml

[murielm99]

25. I love this guy! n/t

[pagandem4justice]

39. Damn good statement!

Give that man all my DU hearts. :)

[RamboLiberal]

15. Not their first incident either

This isn't the first time St. Mary's Academy has confronted such controversy. In 2004, the Catholic school refused to play an eight-man football game against White City because one of the players on White City's roster was a girl.

St. Mary's Academy forfeited the game, and White City was awarded a 2-0 victory.

http://www.cjonline.com/stories/021008/pre_245553740.shtml

I'd like to send this school, their students, and their lunkhead parents to Afghanistan - the American Taliban. I think their Academic credentials ought to be pulled by the state of Kansas!

[AZ Criminal JD]

28. As a "liberal" what religions would you allow

Or are you totally opposed to the First Amendment?

[RamboLiberal]

40. Any religion is allowed

But it doesn't mean you have to certify any school that discriminates. I believe the state has to certify their educational program.

[northzax]

41. no it doesn't

it's a private school, it can do anything it wants, educationally.

but if they are going to participate in interscholastic sports, they need to follow the rules set up for everyone else.

[Ellen Forradalom]

18. Oh. Do those boys listen to their mothers?

Last I checked, a parent was in a position of responsibility over a child.

[Kber]

33. I believe honoring your father AND your mother

is mentioned somewhere someplace - but that's really old school, so I guess it doesn't count.

I personally find it completely ironic that a school named St MARY's wouldn't teach respect for women.

But maybe that's just me.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

19. Is it time for women to start to wear berka's yet?

Seems to me like the the terrorist are winning...thanks bush :mad:

[happyslug]

20. St Mary's is a Anti-Vatican II "Catholic" School.

From the Article:

The school is owned and operated by the Society of St. Pius X, a group founded in 1970 in response to reforms that the Roman Catholic Church initiated with the Second Vatican Council. The group follows pre-Vatican II practices, such as the Latin Mass. Pope John Paul II excommunicated the society’s world leader, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, in the late 1980s. Lefebvre died in 1991."

If you want they web-site here it is:
http://www.smac.edu/

For more on Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Lefebvre

Society of St Pius X :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Saint_Pius_X

[juno jones]

22. Mel Gibson's sect I believe.

Bunch of fascist weirdos. Glad to see the male referees were pissed enough to leave too.

In the end, there are more of us then there are of them. We just gotta keep on. Times they are a changin', it's just R-E-A-L-L-Y slow and we know we have a very limited time left to work with.

[happyslug]

35. Mel Gibson is NOT a member of St Pius X Society, but it is his belief system.

For more see this site:
http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2004/2004-6.html

[pnwmom]

24. In other words, they're a splinter group who broke off from the Roman Catholic Church

but they consider themselves to be the "true" Catholics.

[JVS]

49. The vatican hasn't ejected them. A number of their bishops have been ejected, but the group is "in"

In fact, there seems to be a thawing of relations since Benedict allowed more widespread use of the latin mass

[Kittycat]

21. So I take it they have no Female Teachers or Nuns?

:wtf:

[pnwmom]

23. No, the article says they have some women teachers who teach boys,

but the girls and boys are taught separately.

[Kittycat]

26. Yeah, I noticed that... That was my dry sarcasm.

I should have included this :sarcasm:

I would think having a female teacher over boys, would put the teacher in a position of authority.

[pnwmom]

30. I would HOPE it would put them in a position of authority.

Otherwise, I'd hate to see those classrooms.

[WillParkinson]

27. Sigh

And, honestly, I can't think of much else to say here.

[pingzing58]

29. All I can say is that's not Catholic Church teaching. St. Pius X group are excommunicated

schismatics and in no way represent Catholic education or the role of women in home life and society. However, we must be vigilant that such false beliefs do not creep into Catholic teaching because women are still second class citizens in the Church.

[pnwmom]

31. Thanks for making that crystal clear. People have enough

bad impressions of the Roman Catholic church as it is.

[happyslug]

34. The Founder was ex-communicated, but Pius X Society is not quite in that category.

Look up the situation (See my thread above) and you will see the situation is NOT quite at ex-communications level, but it is also NOT as full Communion either. The Church wants them back into the flock, but NOT with these rigid anti-religious freedom point of view. The Vatican is even willing to permit them to use the Latin Mass if they want to (And recently gave every priest the option of doing so, as part of an effort to appease the St Pius X Society followers). On the other hand the Vatican does NOT want to undo Vatican II, which the Society of St Pius X wants to undo.

How do you deal with radicals and still remain a Universal Church? (Catholic is Latin for Universal, and can be used in that sense even in English). The Church wants discipline, but likes debate (It took over ten years for the Vatican to ex-communication Martin Luther for example for it then faced a similar problem). Thus the present situation, both sides say they are in Communion with each other, but the Vatican has said any Bishop or Priest of St Pius X can not perform religious priestly functions (But such functions are still valid if performed).

Yes, it is a mess. The Vatican has to try to resolve two problem that are in conflict, St Pius's Rejection of Vatican II and the Vatican embrace of Vatican II. St Pius X Society's position that Vatican II is NOT valid, and the Vatican's position that it is. The Vatican is hoping there is a way to resolve this problem, and you resolve problems by debating it (Which is ongoing). The Vatican does NOT want to push St pius X Society against a wall and force it is do something really stupid. Thus the push-pull involved, with the Vatican hoping to resolve the problem without any further sanctions on the members of St Pius X Society.

[pingzing58]

38. Rome has gone soft. BXVI should have delt with them as Innocent III did with the Cathars.

"Kill them all, God will know who are his own. (Cisctercian monk Arnaud Armaury at the battle of Beziers)" Or maybe cooler heads should prevail and the mistakes of the past should not be repeated.

[LiberalFighter]

36. Catholic Church not only religion treating women as second class

[JVS]

50. They are not excommunicated schismatics, but their path causes concern in the vatican

Here's some shit from wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_St._Pius_X#Present_canonical_status_of_the_SSPX

Present canonical status of the SSPX

On the question of whether Archbishop Lefebvre committed a schismatic act in consecrating four bishop in 1988, see Controversy over the consecration.
The Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, appointed by John Paul II for the Holy See observe relations with the Society of St. Pius X and other traditionalist Catholic clergymen in a state of dispute with Rome,<14> has expressed, in letters signed by its Secretary Monsignor Camille Perl, the judgment that "many in authority" in the Society do conform to the definition of schism,<15> and that those who attend SSPX Masses might be in danger of "imbib a mentality which separates itself from the magisterium of the Supreme Pontiff", leading over time - according to Perl - to a "formal adherence to the schism".<16> The second of these letters also declares that attendance at SSPX Masses, since they are celebrated by priests suspended from priestly functions, is for Catholics "morally illicit" in normal circumstances.<16>
On the question of the Society as a whole:
Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, President of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, stated a personal opinion (not endorsed by the Vatican) in a 2005 press interview that a "situation of separation" had come about as a result of the illicit episcopal consecrations, "even if it was not a formal schism."<17> In a television interview the same year, he also stated: "It cannot be said in correct, exact, and precise terms that there is a schism. There is a schismatic attitude in the fact of consecrating bishops without pontifical mandate. They are within the Church. There is only the fact that a full, more perfect communion is lacking – as was stated during the meeting with Bishop Fellay – a fuller communion, because communion does exist."<18> In yet another interview he said: "The bishops, priests and faithful of the Society of St Pius X are not schismatics. By the illicit episcopal consecration Archbishop Lefebvre performed a schismatic act. For this reason the bishops consecrated by him are suspended and excommunicated. The priests and faithful of the Society are not excommunicated. They are not heretics. I share Saint Jerome's fear that heresy leads to schism and vice versa. The danger of a schism is great, for instance through systematic disobedience to the Holy Father or denial of his authority. It is a question of a service of charity (love of neighbor) through which the priestly society obtains full communion with the Holy Father and recognizes the holiness of the new Mass."<19>
Father Gerald E. Murray of the Archdiocese of New York, now working for his Canon Law doctorate, received his license in Canon Law from the Gregorian University, in June 1995 with a thesis entitled, "The Canonical Status of the Lay Faithful Associated with the Late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and the Society of Saint Pius X: Are they Excommunicated as Schismatics?" In his interview he said:<20>
"I have received a license in canon law and I've studied this topic, the excommunication of Archbishop Lefebvre, for my license thesis.... They're not excommunicated as schismatics, as far as I can see, because the Vatican has never said they are... I come to the conclusion that, canonically speaking, he's not guilty of a schismatic act punishable by canon law. He's guilty of an act of disobedience to the Pope, but he did it in such a way that he could avail himself of a provision of the law that would prevent him from being automatically excommunicated(latae senteniae) for this act."
"In the case of the Society of Saint Pius X lay people or the priests, the Vatican never declared any priest or lay person to have become a schismatic."
"As far as I can see, the Holy See has never stated that the mere attendance at a Mass said by a priest in the Society of Saint Pius X constitutes a schismatic act... Let's say that you knew that the priest at your parish was teaching things contrary to the moral law or Catholic doctrine. Let's say he's denied the existence of hell, or taught that divorced and remarried people could receive Communion. Could you go to a Society of Saint Pius X chapel to receive good doctrine? That seems better to me than hearing truly heretical sermons."
The Holy See views the four SSPX bishops as validly ordained but excommunicated.<21> It regards the priests ordained by them as ordained validly but illicitly, with the result that they are by law suspended from exercising their priestly functions.<22><23> No decree of excommunication has been issued against the priests or other religious of the Society (which does have lay members in the "<12> Third Order"), and an attempt by Bishop Ferrario of Hawaii, to excommunicate, on 1 May 1991, some followers of the SSPX, for supporting the SSPX and attending its Masses. Cardinal Ratzinger,now Pope Benedict XVI, declared that the decision "lacks foundation and hence validity." Bishop Ferrario's attempted excommunication of SSPX followers was overturned by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, on June 28, 1993, he said:
"From the examination of the case, conducted on the basis of the Law of the Church, it did not result that the facts referred to in the above-mentioned Decree, are formal schismatic acts in the strict sense, as they do not constitute the offense of schism; and therefore the Congregation holds that the Decree of May 1, 1991 lacks foundation and hence validity."<24>
The SSPX considers itself faithful to the Catholic Church and all its infallible teachings, while rejecting what it sees as novelties in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council. It has officially recognised Pope John XXIII, Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul I, Pope John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI as Popes.
One of the Society's four bishops, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, has declared that Pope Benedict XVI "has professed heresies in the past! He...has never retracted his errors. When he was a theologian, he professed heresies, he published a book full of heresies."<25> In the same interview Bishop Mallerais said of the Second Vatican Council: "You cannot read Vatican II as a Catholic work. It is based on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. ...I will say, one day the Church should erase this Council. She will not speak of it anymore. She must forget it. The Church will be wise if she forgets this council."<25>
Similarly, Bishop Richard Williamson has said of Pope Benedict XVI: "His past writings are full of Modernist errors. Now, Modernism is the synthesis of all heresies (Pascendi, Saint Pius X). So Ratzinger as a heretic goes far beyond Luther's Protestant errors, as Bishop Tissier de Mallerais well said." Williamson added that the documents of the Second Vatican Council "are much too subtly and deeply poisoned to be reinterpreted. The whole of a partly poisoned cake goes to the trash can!"<26>

[happyslug]

32. Only existed from 1978. Prior to 1967 it was a completely different school..

St Mary's was a Jesuit run mission to the Potawatomi Indians from 1848 till after Kansas became a state in 1861. In 1870 the mission was converted to St Mary's Collage for both the local white population and the Indian Population. St Mary's was a Jesuit run Collage from 1870 till 1931, when do to the Great Depression the Collage closed down. It was kept as a Seminary for Jesuits till 1967, when even that part was closed down (and transferred to St Louis). Various efforts to use the property was proposed after 1967, but all failed (Including giving it back to the Prairie Band of the Potawatomi).

In 1977 KATO Corporation purchased an option on the land. This was to be for a Job-Corp program, but do to opposition from the local population that program never came through. KATO held onto the land (and its option) till 1978 when it is sold to the present St Mary's School, which has NOTHING to do with the Jesuits and is run by the St Pius X Society.

For more on St Mary' (From the School Site itself):
http://www.smac.edu/?HistoryMain

[DRoseDARs]

37. How long are we going to tolerate the islamofascists running their terrorist madrassas on our soil?

Clearly, they are training the next generation of home-grown jihadists and didn't trust Ms. Campbell to see what's really going on.

...

Oh, it's a private Christian school?

...

Er, how long are we going to tolerate the LIEbral media's and terrorist leftists' attacks against good, God-fearing Christian schools? When will the oppression end?

[alfredo]

42. I wonder if they are getting any tax money from bush?

[Exultant Democracy]

43. Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.

That school should be closed and then burnt to the ground.

[boricua79]

44. St. Mary Academy = The Taliban

Nobody should be over anybody, but in a game of basketball, gender should not matter.

It's a freaking game of basketball...not politics.

Dumb ass, fake-Christian MORANS!

[Sin]

46. Actually its in the bible.

So there not fake there keeping to the roots of there religion.
You should see all the nice horrid stuff all the Cafeteria christians care to skip over in that wonderful text.
So there not fake at all.

[boricua79]

47. Millions of Christians have learned to read the Bible in an intelligent way

why can't these guys?

I never went to a single church in my life where the girls couldn't participate with men.

This is absolutely bullshit.

[Jack Rabbit]

45. What is the position of St. Mary's on the governor of Kansas?

Just wondering.

[brooklynite]

48. What about that whole "Honor thy Father and Mother"...?