Methodist Hosp advocating antigun politics?

[charlie]

Was at The Methodist Hosp (TMH) Houston in Med Ctr this week while wife had tests. They had computers in the waiting areas so that folks could surf the net while waiting for testing.

This is a nice gesture on their part and yes I realize it's private property and they can enact any policy they want for their computers and it's not my business.

But, I was disturbed by their web censorship policy. When I tried to go to this website and other gun related websites I was blocked by their software and got a page that said "blocked, gun related website". I can understand blocking porno or racy websites, but by blocking gun related sites I feel they are making a statement that guns are in the same class as porno. This is a polical stance.

This is galling in that TMH is a non profit Texas institution. By taking this stance, their management should be stripped of their Texas citizenships and deported to the land of liberals and cartoons. By taking a political stance, they should be stripped of their non profit status. Ha ha.

Seriously, I wonder if all the good Texas Methodists that help support this institution know of this stance. I shoot pistols with a TMH Doc and have some Methodist friends that are gun enthusiests that would not approve.

I told them so on their website. Maybe NRA should apply some pressure to them.

While they have the right to block certain sites, I think they are communicating distrust and disapproval of gun enthusiests. I think we need to complain.

Am I being nit picky here?

[longtooth]

I tried the same thing about a yr & half ago. When I could not get on here I tried several others & got the same results. When I tried the Brady Campeign Site I was able to access that one.

You are right. They have an agenda.

[seamusTX]

One word of caution about this: Many organizations subscribe to services for their Internet filters. Those services decide which sites are blocked. Some use live people to make the selection, and some use computer programs.

It is possible that no one in the Methodist hospital system made a conscious decision to block firearms-related sites.

However, hospital management is generally anti-RKBA. I don't know of one that isn't.

- Jim

[Nazrat]

My employer, a government agency, blocks weapon websites (with the notable exception of this one). However, we are allowed to carry.

It is probably an IT person who made the decision. I wouldn't get too excited about it.

[JasonH]

I'm an IT administrator and you shouldn't be sweating this.

Most web filters are simply appliances that businesses or organizations have installed.

These appliances are pre-programmed to block an assortment of sites.

All web filters I've installed or configured by default block sites that are weapons-related.

Also, web filters can't really magically know that one site is a perfectly benign gun entusiast site and the other is a guide on how to shoot up a school so for liability reasons these sort of things are left to "block."

Feasibly an administrator could go into the device and start adding "safe" gun sites one at a time by request, but realistically it'll never happen because he probably has better things to do.

Hope this all makes a bit of sense. There's no agenda there.

[lawrnk]

I have the same job as Jason, and completely agree.

I'm an IT administrator and you shouldn't be sweating this.

Most web filters are simply appliances that businesses or organizations have installed.

These appliances are pre-programmed to block an assortment of sites.

All web filters I've installed or configured by default block sites that are weapons-related.

Also, web filters can't really magically know that one site is a perfectly benign gun entusiast site and the other is a guide on how to shoot up a school so for liability reasons these sort of things are left to "block."

Feasibly an administrator could go into the device and start adding "safe" gun sites one at a time by request, but realistically it'll never happen because he probably has better things to do.

Hope this all makes a bit of sense. There's no agenda there.

[Venus Pax]

Most entrances at Memorial Hermann in downtown are posted. This irritated me, as I was in and out a lot with Mars, and it's no fun walking through a parking garage with only the big bad OC spray.
It's not so easy to take your business elsewhere when it's a hospital.

[ELB]

I too have experience in the IT field, and with web filtering policies in particular, and I would not let Methodist off quite so lightly. Yes filtering software is often set up and updated by third party vendors, but it is running on Methodist's system and it is their responsibility. I have no doubt that if it came from the vendor with an anti-gun, pro-Brady slant, the Methodist Hospital saw no reason to change it.

The United Methodist Church itself is certainly does have an anti-gun agenda, one of the reasons I have no respect for it, despite having grown up in a Methodist Church. Regardless of however many "conservative" congregations there might be in the Methodist Church, the church hierarchy takes their monies and promotes nonsense, such as the so-called Million Mom March.

elb

[KBCraig]

I'm with ELB. Filtering software is often a blind plug-in, with the user having no idea what is blocked (and filter companies won't release their list, lest people find a way around it), but that doesn't absolve the client of responsibility for using it.

And also like ELB, I grew up Methodist, but could no longer tolerate their "Christian Left" policies by the time I turned 18. They've only gotten worse since then.

Edit to add:
My employer, a US DOJ component, blocks this forum. Luckily I know a little bird with a proxy server.

[gmckinl]

The NRA ILA has a very good (and unfortunately, long) list of anti-gun organizations, companies, and celebrities on its website. Below are a couple of snippets that are relevant to this discussion. Not to bash anyone or any church, but this is simply what I found. I encourage anyone who has not seen these lists to go review them sometime; there are a few surprises there and many that are not.

http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?id=14
The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV), was originally formed in 1975 as the National Coalition to Ban Handguns (NCBH) "for the purposes of banning the importation, manufacture, sale, transfer, ownership and possession of handguns." In 1989, after expanding its efforts to include restrictions on all firearms, the group adopted its new name, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. The United Methodist Church was the principle founder of CSGV.


http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets ... &issue=011
The following organizations have lent monetary, grassroots or some other type of direct support to anti-gun organizations. In many instances, these organizations lent their name in support of specific campaigns to pass anti-gun legislation…

United Methodist Church, General Board & Church Society