ESPN Has a Right to Fire Curt Schilling. What Rights Do People of Faith Have?

ESPN has fired Curt Schilling. The company said that his speech went against company values because ESPN is “an inclusive company.”

What’s at stake here?

Curt Schilling has a right to say biological men don’t belong in women’s bathrooms in whatever controversial way he wants. And ESPN has a right to give Caitlyn Jenner the “Arthur Ashe Courage Award” for being a men’s sports icon who now publicly identifies as a woman. And whether we agree or disagree with Schilling’s message or ESPN’s isn’t the point.

The bigger issue is that ESPN, like any other company, has a right to control its message, which means it should be generally free to make employment decisions based on its values, not Curt Schilling’s, and certainly not the government’s.

The same is true for religious institutions, only more so. While ESPN is committed to being “inclusive,” it’s a large corporation whose main focus is reporting sports in ways that make money. Religious institutions and some family businesses, on the other hand, have more robust substantive commitments driven by faith, not profits alone.

Jewish, Christian, and Muslim schools, for example, provide comprehensive learning environments that support distinctive beliefs and distinctive worldviews. That’s why parents sacrifice to save their money to send their kids there — to avoid the secular liberal indoctrination of many government-run public schools, and to have their children formed intellectually and spiritually in keeping with their values.

So it seems all the more important that religious schools have at least the same freedom as ESPN to make employment decisions based on their sincere beliefs.

More here