This court case follows the story of Lonnie Billard who is a Faculty Member at Charlotte Catholic High School in North Carolina. Billard was a full-time teacher at Charlotte Catholic for 11 years starting in 2011 and retiring in 2012. He was a Drama and English Teacher that taught many students throughout his time. After Billard retired, he returned to Charlotte Catholic as a long-term substitute teacher. In October of 2014, Billard announced through social media that he would be entering into a same-sex marriage. Following his announcement, the Vice Principal at Charlotte Catholic High School informed Billard that he would no longer be hired as a substitute teacher because of his decision to enter into this marriage. Billard then filed a lawsuit for wrongful termination based on sexual orientation. This lawsuit was brought by Billard in an attempt to receive "backpay, benefits, punitive damage, compensatory damages for emotional stress, and a court order blocking the school and Catholic leaders from taking similar actions in the future". Billard believes that he was wrongfully terminated and discriminated against because of his sexual identity. This lawsuit was decided in a federal court, and was recently appealed./cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/gray/STOL5PSYXZCGPDY4JFHSJMAGPQ.jpg)
This case went to the Federal District court on September 3rd 2021 where the court decided against Charlotte Catholic. On April 18th of 2022, the Diocese appealed this decision to the United States Court of Appeals. The Diocese maintains in their argument that this teacher knew that this action was a violation of the Catholic Teaching and should not have expected to be used as substitute after this announcement. The Diocese says that it is their duty to uphold their own religious convictions and conduct the school as such. They assert that the Federal Constitution encourages them to do this, and that all Religious Institutions should be allowed to choose how they want to pass on their faith. This deals directly with the First Amendment and whether or not Congress is making a law regarding the free exercise of religion as prohibited in the Constitution.
This is an interesting case as in the past decade that due with the what is known as the "ministerial exception" which was established by the court to prevent state and federal governance over religious practices and the governance of churches or another place of worship. We see this dealt with in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church v. EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) as well as in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru. 
The former case was a unanimous decision but the latter resulted in a vote of 7-2. In both of these decisions it was clear that the Court felt it very important to uphold the "ministerial exception". This means that if these people are ministers of their religion, that they should be protected by the first amendment. It is also made clear by the court that this is not just reserved for the hiring and firing of employees, but used for all the ways in which the religious institution constructs itself. In Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, Justice Ginsburg and Justice Sotomayor dissented in saying that the "ministerial exception" should not be upheld in these cases because this teacher is not a "minister" of the religion. These teachers, in all three cases, are teaching secular classes such as English and Math, which have nothing to do with religion. The dissent believes that the teacher would have to be a teacher of religion on the school in order to be classified as a minister.
After reading the decision of the Federal District court in North Carolina, as well as the decisions for past cases that deal with the ministerial exception. I believe that the Federal Court made the right decision. I think that this is not case where the ministerial exception is applicable, as Ballard was not a teacher for religion classes. Ballard taught English and was then a Substitute teacher which clearly means that he was not a minister of a religion but a teacher of secular information in a Catholic High School. I also think that this is the correct decision because this is a clear case of discrimination and wrongful termination. I do not believe that religious groups should be able to discriminate in this way as I agree that the ministerial exception is not applicable. This is a very interesting case as it is similar to cases that have been taken up by the Supreme Court before, yet I believe that if it was tried today, this would be a much closer decision than it has been.
7 comments:
Once again there is a case where the issue is between protecting the rights of an LGTBQ person or protecting free exercise rights. I think in this case, you make a very good point that the teacher is teaching English and is a substitute which means he will not be teaching religious material. He was also fired directly because of his marriage which I think is wrongful termination as you said. In order to get consistent results in cases such as this, the supreme court is going to need to make a decision that can be applied to all cases, but for now it is left to a case by case basis. I think in the case of this case, the teacher should not have been fired and the court made the right decision.
I agree with Molly that this is ultimately an act of wrongful discrimination, and that the court made the right decision. He was an English teacher, and as Chris also stated, he was not teaching religious material. This is the key point that made me side with the court. We have continued to see that these cases need to be examined on a case by case basis, and that it does come down to every small detail (the example here being that he taught English and not a religious subject). I think it is important for a precedent to be set with these cases, because all of them challenge the slippery slope idea. He was blatantly discriminated against in my opinion, and there is no way around it.
I agree with the comments above as well as Molly's perspective on this matter. The termination was a direct result of the personal marital choices that Billard has made. Though he was an English teacher and is not teaching any religious material, I believe even if he was teaching a religious course that the ruling still holds truth. I do not think it matters so much the subject he wishes to teach, the school would just need to make sure they are monitoring the curriculum the teachers convey to their students and prevent any discrepancies between the faith of the school and the contrasting religious decision of Billard. While this may be hard to closely monitor around the clock, I think in order for him to reinstated his job there must be a form of oversight solely to ensure no personal opinion or information outside of the set curriculum is being put upon the students. I would agree nonetheless, that Billard is being directly discriminated against for possessing views that oppose the values and belief system of the school.
In my opinion, this is a wrongful act of discrimination and the ministerial exception should not be applied. To reiterate some of the points above, the teacher was not substituting religion classes and only substituted for secular courses. Additionally, in no way does employing someone to teach a secular subject affect the religious mission of the school. Almost no students are aware of their teachers marital status and their marital status has no affect on the school or children. For these reasons, I agree with the opinion of the court and my peers above.
I believe that this is a tough case dealing with wrongful termination. The only objection that I have to the argument is the fact that the teacher is not being considered a "minister". I am aware that he was teaching a secular class, but if we were to look at it from the standpoint of the government giving aid to secular classes at religious school we would find an issue with that. I feel like with this point I am at a loss because he is teaching at a religious school although he is not teaching a religious course it is still the environment there. I do not believe that someone should be fired for their sexual orientation, but if the ministerial exception is applied I feel like that could have an impact on the courts decision.
I disagree, and believe that the Catholic high school should be free to act how it chooses. Given the sectarian nature of the school, and the fact that it is private grants it permission to discriminate within the lines that Catholicism provides. To force the school to act outside its confines would be a clear infringement on their beliefs. The state has no interest in putting the rights of the LGBTQ community before free exercise rights, especially granted that that community has no constitutional protections. The high school has every right to hire and fire who they please according to their religious callings, and the state has to right to override or interpret these callings.
I agree with your perspective that he was wrongfully terminated. While he was at a religious school, he was not teaching any religious courses. Additionally, he was a teacher at the school for many years and was only fired when he came out as gay. This seems to be like more of a case of wrongful termination than one of religious freedom.
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