Court rules North Carolina Catholic school could fire gay teacher who announced his wedding online ( apnews.com )

A Catholic school in North Carolina had the right to fire a gay teacher who announced his marriage on social media a decade ago, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday, reversing a judge’s earlier decision. 

A panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, reversed a 2021 ruling that Charlotte Catholic High School and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte had violated Lonnie Billard’s federal employment protections against sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The school said Billard wasn’t invited back as a substitute teacher because of his “advocacy in favor of a position that is opposed to what the church teaches about marriage,” a court document said.

drunkpostdisaster ,

I do not get these gay Christians. You are surrounding yourself with people who hate you.

stoly ,

People deserve to have a religion that brings them comfort. But I do get your point.

FenrirIII ,
@FenrirIII@lemmy.world avatar

Not all Christians hate LGBT+ people, but those that do are vicious bastards

refalo ,

What are they supposed to do, stop going to church?

lolcatnip ,

Is that a serious question?

nixcamic ,

To a lot of people religion is a fundamental part of who they are, on par with or often even greater than their sexuality. Giving that up is just not an option.

lolcatnip ,

Sounds like an especially severe addiction to me.

nixcamic ,

I mean you could say the same about cultural identity or sexuality. You'd be wrong all three times.

DragonTypeWyvern ,

Religion is like sexuality or following traditions, you don't get a choice?

Lol

nixcamic ,

I mean nothing is 100% like something else, I included sexuality as a comparison to how fundamental it is to people, it's obviously not a complete analogue in every way 🙄

And culture is not just "following traditions" lol it's your worldview, how your process information and so much more.

DragonTypeWyvern ,

Lol

Dozzi92 ,
@Dozzi92@lemmy.world avatar

This ain't just Christian though, it's Catholic. I know some non-denominational, or even Methodist Churches that would be totally cool with it, but Catholics run a harder line, at least where I'm from.

I think the school should have the right to fire him. I also think it (and any other religious school or land use) doesn't deserve tax money or tax exempt status.

badbytes ,

Religion does a lot of harm.

homesweethomeMrL ,

Wait wait wait . . . are you suggesting the Catholic church are assholes???

I mean . . . pffft. What . . . like, what evidence is there for that. Outside of everything we already know, that is.

Weslee ,

I don't understand why a member of LGBT would willingly work for a Catholic school in the first place, surely it wouldn't be a very nice place to be.

mearce ,

I think that people often work jobs that don't align with their beliefs. We don't know peoples circumstances and I think its unfair to assume that everyone has a easy choice in their employer. As you said, it likely isn't a very nice place to work for him, and as such its likely not his first choice. Even if he had other options, this seems like a case of workplace discrimination, which would make him a victim.

xmunk ,

So some people are Christians... and some people are gay... while that overlap is probably smaller than it would be if they were independent variables it still definitely exists.

One of the ways you can tell that we've essentially won the culture war is that even horrible people like Peter Thiel are comfortable being openly gay.

ripcord ,
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

I mean, like the pope is mostly OK with gays and gay marriage now (...more or less). They'd mostly moved on to trans people being the hate target. It's less of a conflict than it used to be.

njm1314 ,

Because a check from a bigot still gets cashed.

CluckN ,

Principal is mad that he didn’t get an invite

TheMightyCanuck ,
@TheMightyCanuck@sh.itjust.works avatar

There's no hate like Christian love ❤️

afraid_of_zombies ,

Christianity going to Christian.

Please no one go here and call them out: https://www.charlottecatholic.org/about-us/contact-us

Please please no one go there and tell them what you think about what they did.

pearsaltchocolatebar ,

I'm not sure why you think they would care.

barsquid ,

This is one of the most blatant and obvious violations of the First Amendment anyone has ever seen. They have a quote literally explaining that they did it for religious reasons.

CaptainSpaceman ,

Lets assume the USSC doesnt overturn this one, does that open up leftists and scientists to exclude religious peoples/groups that dont align with their core beliefs?

I feel like theres a level of abuse here thats inherently going to make USSC toss this one out, butthe Christofascist state we are heading towards may throw us a curveball.

pearsaltchocolatebar ,

No, discriminating against someone's religion isn't legal.

The question is whether being gay is a protected class, but it's not really a question since the SC ruled that being gay was covered under Title VII of the civil rights act.

catloaf ,

The first amendment says "Congress shall make no law". Even considering courts have held it applies to state and local governments too, I don't think any have held that it applies to private entities.

Whether it's a civil rights violation is another question.

cbarrick , (edited )

While I agree that it's shitty, I don't see how it's a first amendment issue. The first amendment is just a limit on the kinds of laws that can be passed. Privately, there can be consequences based on speech, religion, etc. For example, platforms like Twitter are not required to host speech that they disagree with.

The US has at-will employment. Your employer can fire you not hire you for almost any reason, including if you make public statements that they disagree with.

There are very few limits to this. One of which is that you employer cannot discriminate based on sex. The lower court found that discrimination based on sexual orientation counts as discrimination based on sex. The appeals court disagreed.

This is normally the kind of thing that the Supreme Court should settle. But given who is currently sitting on the SCOTUS, I don't think I want this case to go that far right now.

barsquid ,

Missed that it was a Catholic school and not publicly funded. My mistake, I'm not sure if it is 1A, and probably certainly this SCOTUS would allow it.

afraid_of_zombies ,

I don't know why we consider it not publicly funded. Did they pay taxes? No? Ok, how is not paying taxes different than getting money from the government?

stoly ,

If they receive federal funds then there’s still an argument to be made in front of a court not filled with conservative idiots.

Bumblefumble ,

Doesn't the Obergefell decision confirm that discrimination based on sexual orientation by definition is discrimination based on sex, and therefore illegal under the civil rights act? So why should this be allowed?

cbarrick ,

Obergefell is a 14th Amendment ruling, which is "equal protection under the law." So if straight couples are allowed to marry, then gay couples must be allowed to marry.

But with at-will employment, everyone is equally unprotected under the law. So no 14th Amendment violation.

The non-discrimination stuff in employment law comes from the Civil Rights act.

AA5B ,

Read again, the guy wasn’t even fired. Teachers work on an annual contract, and they didn’t renew it. This is not the same as getting fired.

cbarrick ,

s/fire/not hire/

The argument is the same.

Edited the comment.

dogslayeggs ,

You might not understand what the First Amendment means.

This is not a law against speech. This is "private repercussions to public speech," which is absolutely allowed. Further, this is a private organization, not a governmental org. Now, there might be a case for discrimination of a protected class (not sure where NC stands on protecting sexuality), but the school will say the firing is because of social media postings and not because the teacher's sexuality.

In Indianapolis, a Catholic school fired a much beloved teacher because they found out she was a lesbian. She wasn't open about it but was in a long term relationship a woman. There was a lot of outcry, but it was legal under Indiana laws.

pearsaltchocolatebar ,

Not the first amendment, but it's a blatant violation of Title VII of the civil rights act per the SC case Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia.

Delusional ,

I'd say it's a blatant violation of being a normal decent human being. They fail at being nice and kind humans. They are shitty vile people.

stoly ,

The first amendment only applies to the government.

aphlamingphoenix ,

So the church was homophobic a decade ago and then fought to protect their legal right to make an example of that homophobia to the children they're supposed to be stewarding into the world for a full decade and now rest their case on homophobia... "Why are our attendance numbers dropping? Could it be that we're completely out of touch with reality? No, it's reality that is wrong."

dohpaz42 ,
@dohpaz42@lemmy.world avatar

And yet they sit idly by as their priests rape children. As if being LGBTQ+ is worse than pediphellia.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • [email protected]
  • random
  • tech
  • kbinEarth
  • testing
  • interstellar
  • wanderlust
  • All magazines
    •