continue reading...Dan Hinkel and Lisa Black wrote:A music director fired from his job at a northwest suburban Catholic church after he got engaged to his male partner filed a federal discrimination complaint Thursday.
Colin Collette worked at Holy Family Catholic Community in Inverness for 17 years before being terminated from the job in late July after he announced his engagement on Facebook. At the time, Rev. Terence Keehan told him that his same-sex relationship violated the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church, he said.
First of all, I would note that public schools in Illinois would no more fire a music director for entering into same-sex engagement than they would for doing a body shot off a grown woman. (Doing a body shot off an underage girl would of course present different issues.)
Anti-discrimination claims in this lawsuit seems to be precluded by a U.S. Supreme Court case, Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 132 S. Ct. 694 (2012) Under Hosanna-Tabor, a religious school that teaches against same-sex marriage may fire music directors for getting engaged to someone of the same sex, notwithstanding anti-discrimination laws. A religious school that teaches against drinking alcohol may fire music directors for doing body shots (even if the shotee was a grown adult) notwithstanding anti-discrimination laws.
The case may turn on equitable estoppel. There is a Ninth circuit case, Watkins v. United states Army, 875 F.2d 699 (1989) which held that equitable estoppel may prohibit the Army from discharging soldiers under certain circumstances. the court may very well find Watkins to be persuasive authority (assuming that its own appellate chain did not disagree with Watkins). Notably, Hosanna-Tabor does not answer the question of whether the ministerial exception applies to the doctrine of equitable estoppel.