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Catholic Church Argues It Doesn't Have to Show Up in Court Because Religious Freedom
Catholic Church Argues It Doesn't Have to Show Up in Court Because Religious Freedom
And you thought Hobby Lobby was extreme.
—By Molly Redden
| Mon Nov. 17, 2014 10:00 AM EST
When Emily Herx first took time off work for in vitro fertilization treatment, her boss offered what sounded like words of support: "You are in my prayers." Soon those words took on a more sinister meaning. The Indiana grade school where Herx was teaching English was Catholic. And after church officials were alerted that Herx was undergoing IVF—making her, in the words of one monsignor, "a grave, immoral sinner"—it took them less than two weeks to fire her.
Herx filed a discrimination lawsuit in 2012. In response, St. Vincent de Paul School and the Fort Wayne-South Bend Diocese, her former employers, countered with an argument used by a growing number of religious groups to justify firings related to IVF treatment or pregnancies outside of marriage: Freedom of religion gives them the right to hire (or fire) whomever they choose. But the diocese took one big step further. It is arguing that, in this instance, its religious liberty rights protect the school from having to go to court at all.
"I've never seen this before, and I couldn't find any other cases like it," says Brian Hauss, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union Center for Liberty. The group is not directly involved in the lawsuit but has filed amicus briefs supporting Herx. "What the diocese is saying is, 'We can fire anybody, and we have absolute immunity from even going to trial, as long as we think they're violating our religion. And to have civil authorities even look into what we're doing is a violation.'…It's astonishing."
The key legal question in Herx's case is whether she was fired for religious reasons or her firing was an illegal act of sex discriminations.
more...
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/11/catholic-school-fires-teacher-using-ivf-unusual-religious-freedom-defense
