A Catholic school in North Carolina had the fitting to fireplace a gay teacher who announced his marriage on social media a decade ago, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday, reversing a judge’s earlier decision.
A panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, reversed a 2021 ruling that Charlotte Catholic High School and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte had violated Lonnie Billard’s federal employment protections against sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The school said Billard wasn’t invited back as an alternative teacher due to his “advocacy in favor of a position that’s against what the church teaches about marriage,” a court document said.
U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn determined Billard – a full-time teacher for a decade until 2012 – was a lay worker for the limited purpose of teaching secular classes. Cogburn said a trial would still need to be held to find out appropriate relief for him. A 2020 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court declared Title VII also protected employees who were fired for being gay or transgender.
But Circuit Judge Pamela Harris, writing Wednesday’s prevailing opinion, said that Billard fell under a “ministerial exception” to Title VII that courts have derived from the First Amendment that protects religious institutions in how they treat employees “who perform tasks so central to their religious missions – even when the tasks themselves don’t advertise their religious nature.”
That included Billard – who primarily taught English as an alternative and who previously drama when working full-time – because Charlotte Catholic expected instructors to integrate faith throughout the curriculum, Harris wrote. And the college’s apparent expectation that Billard be able to instruct religion as needed speaks to his role in the college’s religious mission, she added.
“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 in addition to on the Bible,” wrote Harris, who was nominated to the bench by then-President Barack Obama. “Our court has recognized before that seemingly secular tasks just like the teaching of English and drama could also be so imbued with religious significance that they implicate the ministerial exception.”
Billard, who sued in 2017, began working at the college in 2001. He met his now-husband in 2000, and announced their decision to get married shortly after same-sex marriage was made legal in North Carolina in 2014.
In a news release, the American Civil Liberties Union and a Charlotte law firm that helped Billard file his lawsuit lamented Wednesday’s reversal as “a heartbreaking decision for our client who wanted nothing greater than the liberty to perform his duties as an educator without hiding who he’s or who he loves.”
“While today’s decision is narrowly tailored to Mr. Billard and the facts of his employment, it nonetheless threatens to encroach on that principle by widening the loopholes employers may use to fireplace people like Mr. Billard for openly discriminatory reasons,” the joint statement read.
An attorney for a bunch that defended the Charlotte diocese praised the choice as “a victory for people of all faiths who cherish the liberty to pass on their faith to the following generation.” The diocese operates 20 schools across western North Carolina.
“The Supreme Court has been crystal clear on this issue: Catholic schools have the liberty to decide on teachers who fully support Catholic teaching,” said Luke Goodrich with The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. Attorneys general from nearly 20 liberal-leaning states in addition to lawyers from Christian denominations and schools and other organizations filed briefs within the case.
Circuit Judge Paul Niemeyer, an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush, joined Harris’ opinion. Circuit Judge Robert King, a nominee of former President Bill Clinton, wrote a separate opinion, saying he agreed with the reversal while also questioning using the ministerial exemption. Rather, he wrote, that Charlotte Catholic fell under a separate exemption in Title VII for religious education institutions dismissing an worker.
Billard told CNN he was “very upset” by the court’s decision.
“There’s lots and a number of case law that backs me up. But my biggest feeling is confusion,” he told the network. “I just felt you may’t tell individuals who you may love and who you may marry. That’s not right, you may’t, you should not give you the chance to fireplace anyone because they love another person. And that is why I went through what I did.”
