Introduction

September 9th, 2004 should have been an ordinary day at work for Lynne Gobbell, an employee of Enviromate, an Alabama housing insulation company. Instead, Gobbell was fired from her job for displaying a Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker in the rear windshield of her car.1 Enviromate owner and Bush supporter Phil Geddes instructed Gobbell’s manager to tell her to remove the sticker from her car or she would be fired. Gobbell confronted Geddes and an argument over whether or not Geddes could tell Gobbell who to vote for ensued, with Gedes telling Gobbell to “Get out of here and shut the door.” After leaving the office, Gobbell asked her manager if Gedes meant for her to go back to work or go home. At first, the manager told her to go back to work, but soon came back and said, “I reckon you're fired. You could either work for him or John Kerry.”

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