“‘Baby Killer’ tells teacher’s side in Loretto firing”
Here’s an item of interest:
Anita Creamer: ‘Baby Killer’ tells teacher’s side in Loretto firing
By Anita Creamer — Bee Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Friday, May 5, 2006
Story appeared in Scene section, Page J1
Marie Bain insists she’s a private woman, the kind of person who keeps her opinions to herself. But she’s also an entertainer.
Which is why, she says, she developed “Baby Killer,” a one-woman show based on her experiences last fall being fired from teaching drama at Loretto High School because of her previous tenure as a Planned Parenthood volunteer.
Nothing like a shocking title to jump-start the controversy again. So much for a quiet, private life.
“I come from show business,” says Bain. “You need to get people’s attention. The title comes from … what they scream at us at the clinics. Extremists say horrible things to everybody. People don’t get that.
“The play is about one year in my life. It’s about when and why and how I started volunteering, through my hiring and firing at Loretto. In the play, I sing and dance. It’s entertainment. I’m not giving a speech.”
On a cool morning, we’re sitting in the Sacramento home that belonged to her late parents. The house is filled with Bain’s quirky, frog-themed collectibles. Her cat sits at our feet.
Bain, 51, is a dancer and actress who’s appeared in “Gilmore Girls” and several low-budget movies. For now, she’s teaching cardio kickboxing at American River College. But she’d like to take “Baby Killer” on the road after its brief run (starting Saturday, continuing May 13 and 20) at Sacramento’s downtown YWCA.
“This play is about the First Amendment,” she says. “It’s about how someone has the right to stand on a sidewalk screaming hate speech, but I’m not allowed to express my beliefs before I was even hired.
“I said nothing to anybody at Loretto - not to the kids, not to anybody - about my beliefs. Nobody knew my beliefs on anything because I kept my personal beliefs private. But I was fired, and it became a media event.”
Hired Aug. 24, Bain was dismissed seven weeks later, after a student’s mother - an anti-abortion activist who’d seen Bain escorting clients at a family-planning clinic months earlier - raised objections, first with Loretto administrators, then with the local diocese.
Bishop William K. Weigand ordered Bain fired, and Loretto’s president complied. Subsequently, school administrators expelled the student from Loretto, and her family was banned from campus.
All in all, a mess. A public relations disaster for Loretto, certainly, but also a very public nightmare for a self-proclaimed private person.
Imagine, if you will, how weird it is for a private citizen to find herself the subject of strangers’ vitriol, expressed in letters to the editor, on radio call-in shows and all over the Internet.
“I’ve never dealt with anything like this,” Bain says. “The level of hate out there is surprising and shocking and disturbing.”
After she sued Loretto, she received an undisclosed settlement.
But for a while, the debate continued. For some reason, it came as a surprise to a vast number of local parishioners that non-Catholics teach at Catholic schools - and that a well-regarded private Catholic high school such as Loretto prides itself on the tolerance and open-mindedness it instills in its students.
Strangest of all, decades after the passage of federal employment legislation, people also seemed surprised to learn that employers are barred by law from asking job candidates about their personal lives and religious and political beliefs.
On the other side, many people - including Bain herself - were surprised to learn that many Catholics are progressive rather than conservative.
“Since I was fired, I’ve run into a couple of my students’ parents,” she says. “They come up and say, ‘We’re so sorry.’ ”
It’s the strictly conservative strain of Catholicism, of course, that’s helped fuel the unfortunate rise of knee-jerk Catholic-bashing, which seems rampant in American society.
“Baby Killer,” the title of Bain’s play, seems to pander to the Catholic bashers among us.
“You can’t not court controversy on this topic,” she says.
Granted. Writing about anything related to abortion is like walking through a minefield: Danger lies in every direction.
In a sense, the extremists have already won the debate: They’ve polarized the nation. And they’ve largely shut the rest of us up, because we know quite well the toxicity that will spew in our direction if we don’t agree word for word with their views.
And so the fringe rules, despite the fact that for decades polls have shown that Americans support reasonable access to abortion rights.
If nothing else, then, let’s give Bain an A-plus for bravery.
“My story is bizarre,” she says. “That’s why this is entertainment. I have a play to put on, because I have a very weird life.”
1JC
wrote on 31 December 1969 at 19:00
The old “Anyone who believes abortion is wrong is an extremist.”
Love the looney left.
When the Mafia “take somebody for a ride,” isn’t the driver just as guilty as the person who puts on the cement boots?
Marie Bain’s a “private person,” yet she’s an actress (albeit a fourth-rate one, by her credits) and teaches–both very public professions. She volunteered at PP, which she had to know was a public act.
I have a question. If Pius XII had publicly denounced the Nazis for killing Jews the way contemporary liberals say he should have (he *did* publicly condemn Nazism on a number of occasions), would that have constituted “hate speech”?
The article is insipid. And the author needs to learn a bit about employment law. It is permissible to discriminate on the basis of religion if you can prove that religion is necessary for the job description. E.g., a Baptist Church would be perfectly right in not hiring a Catholic priest as their minister.
A Catholic school can say that “Adherence to Catholic doctrine” is a job requirement. Every Catholic secondary school I’ve taught at has had that in the job description and in the contract.
Most “Catholic jobs” I’ve applied for (newspapers, etc.) have had it in the job description.
The author is apparently unaware that a former Catholic school teacher in the East Coast who was fired for pro-abortion activism just *lost* her lawsuit.
2Andy Nevis
wrote on 6 May 2006 at 3:18
Presented by The Capitol Steps?
3christina
wrote on 6 May 2006 at 13:46
Ah, yes. “Poor, poor, pitiful me!”
Somebody who didn’t have enough drive and/or talent to make it in show business uses politics to launch a show. On the one hand, you can’t blame her for making a buck. On the other hand, she’s making a buck saying, “All I did was facilitate shredding little babies, and they were so mean to me!” Donn’t help people kill babies if you don’t want to be called “babykiller.” Duh.
4Totus Tuus
wrote on 6 May 2006 at 16:05
I was sad but not surprised to see Anita Creamer put the poor me spin on the Bain article. Anita Creamer is a pro-abort, what would one expect? If she were pro-life, Ms Bain’s “play” wouldn’t have been a blip on her radar. It is sickening that Bain’s uses assisting women to kill babies as the premise for a play. It is just sick.
As an aside - I do hope that everyone signed the petition to get the parental notification on the November ballot.
5Scott L
wrote on 7 May 2006 at 7:58
Marie Bain got fired under the direct order of William Kenneth Weigand, Bishop of Sacramento. This occurred because Wynette Sills, your Mom, spilled the beans to a functionary in Weigand’s office. She had demanded that Sister Helen Timothy fire Marie Bain, whom she had photographed acting as an escort at a Sacramento Planned Parenthood clinic. Timothy stiff-armed her.
Your Mom got on the phone to a pal in the Bishop’s office to complain.
Soon after that call, Weigand ordered Timothy to fire Bain.
Ah, but Helen Timothy, who runs the school, had just about had a bellyfull of Sills. She did not agree that one indignant set of parents had the right to bullyrag her into firing anybody.
So she expelled you, and all of your family, forever.
Weigand, of course, immediately sat down and wrote a letter to Sister Helen Timothy, ordering her to readmit you and your whole family into the loving Catholic arms of Loretto.
Whoa! That last didn’t happen! How come?
6L.
wrote on 7 May 2006 at 8:19
Well, I enjoyed “The Vagina Monologues” when I saw it, but I think I`ll pass on seeing “Baby Killer.”
I actually wondered whether that was a parody article.
7Andy Nevis
wrote on 7 May 2006 at 8:36
“Whoa! That last didn’t happen! How come?”
Becuase the Bishop has control only over issues of morality, abortion being one of them. Administrative affaris are, unfortunatly, left up to the schools.
The Bishop could have done some things. He could have publically denounced the school and banned them from recruiting at elementary schools controlled by the Diocise.
But I can’t say I exactly blame him. He obviously wouldn’t want to further divide his diocise. He was very supportive of the Sills from what I hear, though, and offered Katelyn a spot at the Catholic High School controlled by the diocise (St. Francis), although they declined the offer mainly becuase it was too far a commute.
But all and all, I think it worked out for the better. She now attends a public school that far surpasses Loretto academically. True, she doesn’t get the religious education, but I think she is doing just fine with that on her own. I’m the one who probably needs that
8Aaron
wrote on 8 May 2006 at 14:02
First time I’ve seen your blog.
I’m very impressed.
Congratulations and keep up the good work.
9Lyric Mezzo
wrote on 8 May 2006 at 19:24
“…despite the fact that for decades polls have shown that Americans support reasonable access to abortion rights”
Which polls exactly is she referring to? Just curious. I’d like to see the numbers.
Of course, numbers can be spun either way - I haven’t been too trustful of polls lately, even when they support my cause!
10Ron
wrote on 11 May 2006 at 8:33
Her life is weird? I’m glad she told me, because I don’t have the slightest interest in knowing weird lives. What an absolute waste of time.
11hoody
wrote on 12 May 2006 at 1:08
Amazing.
The issue re-ignites, and any hope Marie Bain ever had of coming out of this mess with proper dignity has been eliminated.
And I see that the deranged trolls like Scott L are still in full throat. What fun.
12Scott L
wrote on 12 May 2006 at 8:27
Just keep up the angry Clinton posts, hoody. It’s the sure path to victory for Republicans in the new century.
All the best,
Scott L.
13Al of Alnot
wrote on 12 May 2006 at 10:52
The worst part is that the more liberals abort the fewer of them there are to vote. ==evil grin== And they wonder why they are losing elections.LOL
14L.
wrote on 12 May 2006 at 22:24
Al of Alnot, so your solution is to force more of us liberals to bear our unwanted babies instead? Why? Why not preserve your demographic advantage?
15P
wrote on 14 May 2006 at 4:16
Don’t worry. It’s only a play. Some people actually kill the people that get them fired from their jobs for stupid reasons. But, of course, most kids in high school don’t know what it’s like to pay rent and provide for themselves so it’s no big deal to them. And some of the hate here. Wow. “Shredding babies”? “Baby killer”? I laugh at some of the people in the anti-choice movement who proclaim to be spokepeople for God and spew hate, when in fact, they don’t know the first thing about God, or even know Him at all. Some of these people sound like they would fit right in with the Taliban. Here’s to ya! Yeah right.
16Andy Nevis
wrote on 14 May 2006 at 14:21
P,
Just curious, where are you in these pictures? Are you the man holding the sign with a cross and a swastika printed over it? Perhaps you are the man with the sign “Kill your kids (bleep).” Or just maybe you have the sign saying “Human loss of life is nessesary.”
BTW, if Katelyn wanted to be nice to you she would delete your comment. You, my friend, have just added another fine comment to be used by pro-lifers to show the absurdity of some in the pro-choice movement.
17chrysd
wrote on 24 May 2006 at 16:36
We shouldn’t say babykillers? Why? It is the truth. a woman goes in with a baby. The baby is killed. Should we not say the truth. should we have not called racists racists? Should we have not called Nazis bad guys? When people are doing bad things and we call it, why does it matter what is PC. If calling it babykilling is spewing hate, then why isn’t it hate when the other side speaks?
18chrysd
wrote on 24 May 2006 at 17:03
And L, here you go again about forcing us to have unwanted babies. I have 4 children and I get a lot of the old “You know they know how to fix that.” I am turning that around. Don’t want children, don’t have sex. Have a husband, practice NFP. You abstain for less than a week each cycle. That is all.
It is far more compassionate to abstain a few days than to have a women’s tubes tied or a man to have a vasectomy or have an abortion- why ask your spouse to go through an operation or pump the body full of chemicals? I believe in no contraception for myself and my children. But I would prefer that (though it only reduces the chance of pregnancy, doesn’t ‘protect’ you from it) to the willfull killing of someone. There are choices out there.
I believe part of being married is to give your body to your spouse. I believe that husbands need to feel they are loved and sex is an important way to bond that shows him he is special. I think it is great you believe in giving of youself to your husband. But, I also believe it is a two-way street. Husbands show they love their wives by not having sex. When she doesn’t want more children, he should control his passions for just a few days. In this way, the marriage bond grows stronger. Both of the spouses feel loved, wanted, and needed. Neither feels the entire burden of fertility or being used.
The wife should not feel the choice must be made between take care of this man you dearly love and not neglect him OR potentially having to kill any children that may come out of the union. The first is a sure thing, the second isn’t. So many may risk it. But you can have both. We love you and your husband. We don’t want you to neglect him or your needs. Let me offer you this as an alternative. Let me help you from having to make such a life-and-death decision.
God Bless,
Crystal Dawn
19L.
wrote on 24 May 2006 at 19:56
Sorry, Dawn, I am unwilling to play Natural Family planning roulette. I know that it is highly effective when the woman`s ovulation can be accurately predicated, but for me, the stakes are just too high — there`s NO WAY I am ever having another baby, and no one is every going to force me to!
And did I ever say anything about forcing YOU to? I don`t believe I did — what I said was about me and MY choices, not you and yours. I`m truly glad you`re happy with your life, but your life is yours, not mine.
If you or anyone would like to pray for me, pray that my husband will someday agree to a vasectomy — I would greatly appreciate all the help I could get, in that department.
20chrysd
wrote on 27 May 2006 at 19:41
This is what I heard.
“I am unwilling to play the Natural Family planning roulette. I know it is highly effective when a women’s cycle can be accuarately predicted. The stakes are too high for me to try this.”
Am I missing something? I must be. To me NFP is a form a pregnancy prevention.
No pregnancy = no wories about pregnancy, no needing an abortion. So why not try this form of pregnancy prevention? I am confused.
And who said I was trying to force a pregnancy on you? The previous post was about trying an alternative to not having a pregnancy- to never even have begun one. Or at least one way to try accomplishung that. Secondly, when you had said is your idea to force liberals to have babies, I was responding to that. It sounded like you were a spokeswomen for other liberal women and defending them. So I was responding with “us”, as in women in our society, which we both are. When I talking abot forcing abortions on us, I meant how it is thrown out there as the only choice.
I apologize for being unclear and hope I am doing a better job this time.:)
21L.
wrote on 27 May 2006 at 21:39
Oh, my sarcastic comment about “forcing more of us liberals to bear our unwanted babies instead” was directed at the commenter before me who gloated that “the more liberals abort the fewer of them there are to vote.”
I`ve studied NFP, and I know people who rely only on it and manage to keep their families small. However, I prefer not to rely on it alone, because I never want to have to choose between another pregnancy or an abortion. I don`t want either. Short of abstinence, there is no way to bring the risk of pregnancy to zero, but I aim to reduce it to as close to zero as I possibly can.
22chrysd
wrote on 28 May 2006 at 15:20
L., I am sorry I should have looked back over the post better. My fault. I took your comment out of context.
As for the not wanting to practice NFP by itself, I have an alternative. There’s a book we came across. It introduces FAM (Fertility Awareness Method) called “Taking Charge of your Fetility: The Definitve Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Acheivement, and Reproductive Health”. The author is Toni Weschler, MFP (Master of Public Health). She is more liberal to moderate on women’s issues from reading her book. She advocates charting as a means of not just controlling fertility, but to understanding her reproductive health.
She is less preachy than NFP authors.
Her method involves using contraception on days a woman ovulates and wants to have sex. But she has some interesting things to say that would be more in keeping with your worldview.
I’ll write more on it later. Today may be a busy day for my family.
23chrysd
wrote on 28 May 2006 at 15:22
Oops! It isn’t her method. She came across it earlier in her career.
24chrysd
wrote on 28 May 2006 at 16:33
To Weschel, Fertility Awareness is part of the women’s health movement. It is a way to liberate ourselves. She feels we shouldn’t be left in the dark about our own bodies. That we are prey to our gynecologists, who may not really understand our fertility either. She sounds like a modern feminist- holding up Margaret Sanger as a forerunner in the fight to control your own fertility.
Now, I do not agree with her ideology, but I do agree about not being at the mercy of a male-dominated profession that doesn’t have to be on the other side of the exam. She claims that we would never approve of many contraceptives being widely used if MEN had to endure side effects. She wants to make cleqr in her book that FAM isn’t the Rhythm Method or NFP. She believes in having a method that isn’trestricted to religious adherents, naming the Catholic Church explicitly.
I think you would enjoy reading her book. I am sure there must be bookstores in SanFrancisco to browse at it. Just another twist on fertility and genelogical health.
25Anonymouse
wrote on 17 June 2006 at 6:05
http://www.tourolaw.edu/Patch/Roe/
I just wonder how many of you have actually read this.
26Katelyn Sills
wrote on 17 June 2006 at 6:34
The question is, have you read it?
If so, you are certainly aware that the decision is terrible law, right?
http://www.affbrainwash.com/archives/020500.php