Monday, November 13, 2006

Follow-up: Crosswalk Administrator's Horrible E-mail Story

I received the following cc of a letter to the powers-that-be at Salem Communications concerning the reprehensible actions of Fritz Alberti (admin at the "family" of sites run by Salem) when a "community" member was in immediate danger. I have edited nothing except the writer's name (per Badge of Honor policy).

Dear Sirs,

I am writing to discuss the discriminatory behavior of Fred Alberti (aka
Fritz), the Manager of your site Crossdaily.com and its parralel chatroom.
It involves an ongoing attitude of disrespect, discriminatory enforcement of
policy, and shockingly anti women remarks made often and publicly by
Alberti.

In addition to many other instances I bring to your attention the shocking
exchange involving a woman who had confided online that she was in extreme criminal danger and was certain it was going to happen again. (I am including a link to this email correspondence between a fellow chatroom woman trying to help her and Alberti.)
http://abadgeofhonor.blogspot.com/2006/06/crosswalk-administrators-horrible-e.html

Myself along with many other fellow Christian chatters are deeply shocked by the manner in which Alberti responded to these Women in need. I have spoken with Alberti about this matter and he personally confirms the quotes and in a terrifying manner defended that the wife should submit to her husband.

Regarding his decision, if he is in fact following policy perhaps it is one
that needs to change. Admittedly I am not a lawyer, but I understand that
confidentiality laws for websites of this nature do not apply if they
believe a crime is being committed. I would expect a web manager to be
familiar with this.

Apart from his decision of inaction, the condescending nature and tone of his reply is nothing short of disrespect and speaks loudly to his public disdain for women. We ask for action to be taken to address this as many of us have lost faith in the direction of this chatroom and consequently Salem Communication's views on the rights of women.

We feel it is a very serious sign of the viewpoint of this admin. He has
engaged several opportunities to express his deep belief in women's
inferiority and I myself have witnessed many examples of this through his
discriminatory behavior toward Women on the site he directs. There have been many other instances of this. If any further evidence is necessary of
Alberti exercising his discriminatory views of Women as administrator we can easily provide them.

We request an immediate respectful and public apology to be posted by
Alberti (on the posting site and the chat room) and his resignation.
Anything short of this will be considered by us and by the public to be an
official affirmation of his viewpoint as being that of Salem Communications. We all make mistakes but our Christian leaders must be the most steadfast in sheparding the flock. I would never suggest that Alberti be banned from chatting, but he is not fit to be an official representative of the site or the chatroom.

Many I have spoken with wished to be more public using several of our (very large) congregations as a platform to condemn the site, but I disagreed because i believe our voices will be heard. We have decided that you should be made aware first and given the opportunity to remedy the situation as we believe you will wish to. Your sites have been a joy and a blessing to us all. It would break my heart to feel we are no longer welcome. As I am sure you have probably not been aware of this practice I hope you appreciate this alert. Your action taken in this matter will show great courage and will be deeply respected.

Thank you and god bless,

[letter writer]

Given the bad-mannered nature of one rejected response to the earlier entry here, which I received even before I could get this letter posted, I'd say that "LW's" letter struck a nerve with someone over at the Salem "family." As with all Badge of Honor comments, any comments submitted must conform to the posted guidelines, or they WILL be rejected. Whatever you happen to think the writers and I are "full of," keep your comments civil if you want them to be accepted.