A Roman Catholic school in Massachusetts has been ordered by a Superior Court judge to hire homosexuals for non-teaching positions.
Matthew Barrett was hired in 2013 as the food service director at Fontbonne Academy in Milton, an all-girls preparatory high school. The school is sponsored by the Roman Catholic Sisters of Saint Joseph of Boston. While filling out employment forms, Barrett listed a “husband” as his emergency contact. Because Barrett’s living in an open homosexual relationship violated the values held by the school, he was told he could not work there.
Barrett sued the school, and Superior Court Justice Douglas Wilkins agreed he had been illegally discriminated against. Wilkins’ ruling stated that since Barrett’s job was a “non-teaching” position, the school’s religious values did not matter.
Fontbonne Academy had argued that it hired only those who were in accordance with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, one of which is that homosexual behavior is sinful. Being forced to hire someone who openly practiced such an activity was a violation of the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion and freedom of association.
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C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League, agreed with Fontbonne Academy. “Religious freedom consists not merely of the right of worship, but of the right of religious institutions to govern their internal affairs free of state interference.”
Doyle said that the school was protected not only by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, “but even more broadly, by Article II of the Declaration of Rights of the Massachusetts Constitution.” Taking direct aim at Judge Wilkins’ ruling, Doyle said that his decision “would compel Catholic institutions to hire those who reject and despise Catholic teaching, fatally impairing the constitutionally protected right of those institutions to carry on their mission. This is precisely the sort of ‘excessive entanglement’ of government with religion decried and prohibited by the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Judge Wilkins’ parsing of teaching and non-teaching positions in the school is also errant, Doyle could have added. Since the mission of the school is to advance the Catholic faith, which includes the lifestyle promoted by the Roman Catholic Church, all employees, not just those in formal teaching positions in classrooms, should be examples of that faith. Surely a Jewish school would not be forced to hire a Nazi sympathizer as a janitor, just because it is a “non-teaching” position.
The secular progressives are increasingly hostile to Christian values.
In London, an American street preacher was arrested for simply stating his belief that homosexual behavior was a sin. Many remember when a photographer in New Mexico who refused to photograph a same-sex wedding ceremony on religious grounds was punished because he violated the New Mexico Human Rights Act. A former CEO of Mozilla was forced out simply because he made a political donation to the Proposition Eight campaign (which supported putting into the California state constitution the standard that marriage was between a man and a woman). And in Colorado, a baker faced up to a year in jail for refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding on the grounds that it violated his religious beliefs — despite the fact that Colorado did not even recognize same-sex marriage at the time.
We can expect that outrageous decisions, such as that made by Judge Wilkins in Massachusetts, to become increasingly common, until there is a push back against such disrespect for both the Christian faith and the concept of religious liberty.
Steve Byas is a professor of history at Hillsdale Free Will Baptist College in Moore, Oklahoma. His book, History’s Greatest Libels, is a challenge to some of the greatest lies of history.
