The attacks on the religious freedom of Catholic institutions and many of those who work within them are just beginning

Catholic Schools Pressed to Give Up Morality

by Anne Hendershott

After decades of well-documented dissent on many Catholic college campuses over Church teachings on abortion, contraception, and same sex marriage, a new front in the Catholic culture wars has opened on Catholic K-12 campuses as increasing numbers of gay and lesbian teachers and administrators at these schools are lobbying for the right to marry their same sex partners—and keep their jobs.

Posting pictures of their same sex engagements and weddings on Facebook pages shared with students, or publishing their wedding announcements in local newspapers, some of them have been terminated—not for being gay or lesbian—rather, for choosing a lifestyle that is viewed by the Church as inconsistent with Catholic teachings on marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

Within the last school year, Catholic school teachers and administrators in Missouri, California, New Jersey, Ohio, Arkansas, and Seattle proudly announced their same sex engagements and marriages. All have been terminated. In Massachusetts, a food service worker who had applied for a job at a Catholic school in Milton claims he was denied the job because in his application materials, he identified his husband as the next of kin for an emergency contact.

Not surprisingly, the lawsuits have already begun as the courts have become the preferred battleground for the aggrieved plaintiffs in the Catholic culture wars. Presented as helpless victims of what they and their supporters see as a draconian doctrine on marriage, there is strong public support for the terminated teachers. Few cite the fact that as a condition of their employment, teachers and administrators at Catholic schools formally agree to a code of conduct that requires them to uphold lifestyles compatible with the moral teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Being a gay or lesbian teacher is certainly not the reason for these dismissals—the Church teaches that all those with same sex attraction are to be treated with respect and dignity—but publicly flouting Church teachings on marriage is something else entirely because of the public scandal it creates as faithful Catholics demand that their children’s teachers support these teachings.

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