A federal appeals court has ruled a Catholic school in North Carolina had the right to fire a gay teacher who announced a decade ago that he was going to marry his longtime partner.

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.

  • cbarrick@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    6 months ago

    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.

    • Bumblefumble@lemm.ee
      0·
      6 months ago

      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?

    • barsquid@lemmy.world
      0·
      7 months ago

      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@lemmy.world
        0·
        7 months ago

        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?

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
      0·
      6 months ago

      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.