Thursday, February 19, 2004

Bloch Head

Legal reasoning, University of Kansas and Bush Administration-style:

Scott J. Bloch, the agency head [of the Office of Special Counsel], said he ordered the material removed because of uncertainty over whether a provision of civil service law applies to federal workers who claim unfair treatment because they are gay, bisexual or heterosexual.

"It is wrong to discriminate against any federal employee, or any employee, based on discrimination," Bloch said.

That kind of nuanced analysis could get you a full professorship at the University of Tennessee.

Here's more on Scott Bloch, student of philosophy:

Casper College instructor Robert Carlson has been offered a position in the Office of Special Counsel to President George W. Bush, Carlson said Tuesday.

Carlson would serve in Washington, D.C., under Scott J. Bloch, who heads the office. Carlson met Bloch in the late 1970s at the University of Kansas, where Bloch was a student in a class Carlson taught as a graduate student.

If he takes the post, Carlson, who currently teaches literature and philosophy at CC, will be charged with providing counsel to Bloch on ethical issues.

...

Prior to his recent appointment as special counsel, Bloch headed up the Task Force for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in the United States Department of Justice. He was able to choose two special assistants -- one of whom could be a philosopher.

"He thought of me," Carlson said.

In 1998, Carlson and two other Casper College instructors introduced an anti-gay program at the school called Anchor. The instructors touted the program, part of SoFAITH, the Society of Families Anchored in Truth, as pro-family values.

Carlson and the other instructors, Jay Graham and Mike Keogh, created the Anchor program to counter the Safe Zone program, created in 1997, which promoted acceptance and understanding of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people.

The Anchor program was denied endorsement by Casper College because of what President LeRoy Strausner described as Anchor's anti-gay agenda....

You'll fit right in, Bob.

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