A Massachusetts state court ruled in mid-December 2015 that a Catholic school may not deny employment to a homosexual.
Fontbonne Academy, an all-girls college preparatory school in Milton, Massachusetts, offered Matthew Barrett a job as a food service director in Summer 2013. When Barrett filled out a new employee form and listed his “husband” as an emergency contact, school administrators rescinded the offer, citing Catholic belief that marriage is between a man and woman and that they require employees to model Catholic values.
On Dec. 30, 2015, superior court associate Justice Douglas H. Wilkins ruled the school discriminated against Barrett in violation of state law.
Wilkins said Barrett also suffered “gender discrimination” because he was denied a job “for marrying a person whom a female could have married without suffering the same consequences.”
Barrett’s lawyer, Ben Klein, of Boston-based Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, said the court’s decision was the first time a judge had ruled against a religious organization seeking to deny employment to a person in a same-sex “marriage.”
Although a Massachusetts nondiscrimination law offers an exemption to religious organizations, the exemption only applies to organizations that limit enrollment to members of their own religion. Fontbonne Academy accepts students of all faiths, so the exemption does not apply.
‘Ministerial exemption’
In addition the justice wrote the so-called “ministerial exception” that normally gives religious organizations broad discretion in hiring and firing employees did not apply in the case because Barrett would not be involved in teaching religious matters as a cook.
In a similar case in Georgia, a Catholic prep school settled out of court with a music teacher who claimed he was fired because he “married” his gay partner. In that case, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission agreed the music teacher likely had been fired because of his sexual orientation.
(BP)
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