Catholic prep school broke state law by rescinding job offer to man in same-sex marriage, judge says
Image from Shutterstock.
A Catholic prep school in Massachusetts violated the state’s anti-discrimination law when it rescinded a job offer to a man in a same-sex marriage, a judge has held.
Superior Court Judge Douglas Wilkins granted summary judgment to the plaintiff on Dec. 16. Wilkins found that the religious exemption to the state’s anti-discrimination law does not apply to the case, because the school employs and educates people of all faiths, the Boston Herald and the Boston Globe report.
“[The] legislature has defined ‘employer’ to exclude only those religious organizations that ‘limit membership, enrollment, admission, or participation to members of that religion’,” Wilkins wrote in his order (PDF). “Fontbonne is an ‘employer’ under this section, because it does not limit membership, enrollment, admission or participation to Catholics.”
Matthew Barrett had been offered a job in 2013 as food services director at Fontbonne Academy, an all-girls Catholic prep school in Milton, the Herald says. But the school rescinded the offer when Barrett listed his husband as his emergency contact on his employment forms.
As an educational institution, Fontbonne Academy retains control over its mission and message, Wilkins said in his decision. “It is not forced to allow Barrett to dilute that message, where he will not be a teacher, minister or spokesman for Fontbonne and has not engaged in public advocacy of same-sex marriage.”
Wilkins’ summary judgment order did not decide any damages in the case; he left it to the parties to decide whether a trial must be held to do so.
Bennett Klein, senior attorney for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, which represented Barrett, called the order “an important decision for equality and dignity across Massachusetts and across the country.”
But the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts described the decision as “a frontal assault on religious freedom, an appalling subordination of the First Amendment to the Massachusetts gay rights law, and a victory by homosexual activists in their campaign to coerce Christians into compliance with same-sex marriage.”
Same-sex marriage was determined to be legal in the state by the ruling in Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health (2003), in which the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recognized it as a right granted under the state’s constitution.
Neither the school nor its attorneys responded to several requests for comment, the Herald reports.
