CV NEWS FEED // A federal appeals court held Wednesday that a Catholic high school in Charlotte, North Carolina had the right to fire a teacher in 2014 after he entered into a same-sex “marriage.”
Judge Pamela Harris of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit wrote the court’s opinion. Harris was appointed by former President Barack Obama.
“Lonnie Billard, a longtime teacher of English and drama at Charlotte Catholic High School (CCHS), sued for sex discrimination under Title VII after CCHS fired him for his plans to marry his same-sex partner,” Harris wrote in her ruling. “We conclude that because Billard played a vital role as a messenger of CCHS’s faith, he falls under the ministerial exception to Title VII.”
Harris explained that CCHS is operated by the Diocese of Charlotte, which “sees its schools as an integral part of its religious mission to ‘spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ’; indeed, canon law requires Catholic bishops to establish Catholic schools.”
“Although CCHS offers separate secular and religious classes, religion infuses daily life at the school,” continued Harris,
CCHS’s mission statement describes the school as “an educational community centered in the Roman Catholic faith which teaches individuals to serve as Christians in our changing world.”
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CCHS’s teachers play a critical role in pursuing those missions. CCHS expects its teachers to begin each class with a short prayer, led either by the teacher or the students, though it does not dictate the content of the prayer.
“CCHS’s expectations of its teachers extend beyond the classroom,” the judge emphasized. “It does not require all its employees to be Catholic. But, Catholic or not, it requires its employees to conform to Catholic teachings.”
Shortly following the Fourth Circuit’s decision in favor of the school, religious freedom attorney Luke Goodrich wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “The Diocese of Charlotte’s Catholic schools exist to provide a top-notch education and help pass on the Catholic faith to the next generation.”
“They ask all teachers to uphold Catholic teaching,” he added. “[R]eligious groups have the freedom to choose who carries out their religious mission. This ruling is a win for people of all faiths who cherish the freedom to pass on their faith to the next generation.”
Goodrich, a Catholic, is the vice president and senior counsel at Becket Law, a religious freedom law firm.
In a subsequent X post, the attorney wrote that the Fourth Circuit’s ruling “is consistent with a long line of Supreme Court precedent upholding the freedom of religious schools to select teachers who uphold their faith.”
Last year, the controversial LGBTQ activist group New Ways Ministry (NWM) published a supportive article about the fired teacher and his case against the school.
In the article, NWM repeatedly referred to Billard’s “husband” and used the common euphemism “reproductive rights” to refer to abortion.
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