Fired for Posting About His Wedding, Gay Catholic School Teacher Loses Court Appeal
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Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something completely messed up (that’s how it goes, right?).
A gay North Carolina teacher who announced his marriage online and was let go from his substitute teaching job as a result has lost his appeal against the Catholic school that terminated him.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, reversed a 2021 ruling in favor of Lonnie Billard, which found that in firing him, the Catholic high school violated his federal employment protections against sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
After Billard posted on Facebook about his intention to marry his partner in 2014, the Associated Press reports, he was told he would not be invited back to teach because of his “advocacy in favor of a position that is opposed to what the church teaches about marriage,” according to a court document reviewed by the AP.
Federal circuit judge Pamela Harris wrote that Billard fell under a “ministerial exception” and that Title VII did not apply to him. Even though Billard was an English teacher and a lay member of the staff, the court ruled that Charlotte Catholic High School was a protected religious institution and was allowed to fire employees “who perform tasks so central to their religious mission — even if the tasks themselves do not advertise their religious nature.”
“The record makes clear that (Charlotte Catholic) considered it ‘vital’ to its religious mission that its teachers bring a Catholic perspective to bear on Shakespeare as well as on the Bible,” Harris wrote. “Our court has recognized before that seemingly secular tasks like the teaching of English and drama may be so imbued with religious significance that they implicate the ministerial exception.”
Billard began teaching at the school in 2001 and was a full-time teacher until 2012. He announced his intention to marry his husband shortly after North Carolina legalized same-sex, according to the Associated Press.
The law firm defending the school, as well as the Charlotte diocese, praised the decision. “The Supreme Court has been crystal clear on this issue: Catholic schools have the freedom to choose teachers who fully support Catholic teaching,” Luke Goodrich of The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty — a law firm that the Southern Poverty Law Center has said is one of the “hardline groups promoting ‘religious freedom restoration acts’ to justify anti-gay discrimination” — said in a statement to the Associated Press.
The justices have yet to take up a case on whether statewide bans on transgender health care are unconstitutional. But an upcoming Tennessee lawsuit could be pivotal.
The American Civil Liberties Union, in a statement, called the ruling a “heartbreaking decision for our client who wanted nothing more than the freedom to perform his duties as an educator without hiding who he is or who he loves.”
The statement also warned of more dire consequences of the ruling beyond the scope of Ballard’s own circumstances. The decision, according to the statement, could chip away at protections currently afforded to LGBTQ+ workers “by widening the loopholes employers may use to fire people like Mr. Billard for openly discriminatory reasons.”
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