Timothy Gordon, a theology teacher in Bakersfield, Calif., told the “Todd Starnes Radio Show” said he was fired over criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement and it is time that conservatives in the country begin to “circle the wagons” and defend each other from the left’s onslaught and cancel culture.
Gordon, the author and host of the podcast “Rules for Retrogrades,” said that at around the time of George Floyd’s death in police custody, he sent out a number of tweets from his personal account that were critical of Black Lives Matter. He said he did not pull the posts out of thin air and they were “well substantiated.”
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He pointed out that the FBI listed BLM as “black identity extremists.” Foreign Policy, in 2017, reported that the agency warned that the movement—which was new at the time—“was violent, growing, and racially motivated.” The article said that the group was a threat to premeditated violence against law enforcement.
Bakersfield.com reported that the official BLM website states, “we disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.”
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Gordon, a father of six who taught at Garces Memorial High School, said back in 2017, it was “strangely” easier to articulate that BLM “is a home-funded terror organization.” He said even right-wing news organizations are “standing down” on criticizing the movement.
“I wish I could say that I’m surprised by this,” Todd Starnes, the host of the radio show, said. “But there is an effort to silence anyone who disagrees with the mainstream media’s narrative and that narrative of these leftists who will try to destroy you.”
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So Gordon sent the tweets and a petition quickly materialized with 146 names calling for his ouster. He said most were “dissident” Catholics with a liberal bent, many of whom Gordon said he never taught. He said the petition itself was a prime example of cancel culture.
He said he tried to contact the school’s principal to offer some background on the tweets, but did not hear back. He found out later that he was fired. He said the school and diocese never warned him about tweeting his opinions despite knowing that he is a well-known conservative.
Gordon said he does not have a smoking gun that he was fired over the tweets, but called the decision “conspiquious,” since he was fired two hours later.
Gordon said the timing has been hard on his family. He said his family relies on his income and his oldest daughter—two months ago– had a hemispherectomy, which is an operation that involves either partial or total removal of a cerebral hemisphere.
He said his health insurance runs out at the end of July but he stands by his tweets.
“Garces siding with these domestic terrorists is insane,” he said in an earlier interview.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno told Bakersfield.com that it would not comment on personnel matters. Mona Faulkner, superintendent of the Diocese of Fresno, said last week that Gordon “is not authorized to speak on behalf of the Diocese of Fresno or Garces Memorial High School, and neither the Diocese nor Garces Memorial High School condones Mr. Gordon’s recent postings.”