Catholic School Terminates Woman Over Her Marriage.... To A Man

[DeSwiss]

Teacher Terminated Over Marriage

By Brian Chasnoff | San Antonio Express-News | December 30, 2008


Teacher Marquis LaFortune's marriage
last month to Benjamin Stakes led to
her dismissal.

Less than a week before Marquis LaFortune was supposed to marry her fiance, the principal of the downtown Catholic high school where she worked as an English teacher called her into his office to warn that a “scandal” was looming. The scandal, the deacon informed the bride-to-be, was her coming marriage.

LaFortune married anyway, but now she's the one who feels scandalized. Fired from Central Catholic High School for the Nov. 22 wedding, the 25-year-old has filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and wants to sue the school. The reason for her termination turns on a theological tenet. According to Catholic doctrine, participants in a marriage must be an unmarried man and an unmarried woman. LaFortune told the principal that her fiance had been divorced — a proceeding not recognized by the Catholic Church.

The deacon was concerned with whether the first marriage of LaFortune's fiance, Benjamin Stakes, had been declared invalid by a Catholic tribunal and thereby annulled. His concern, however, did not sit well with LaFortune, who refused to resign from her job or seek an annulment — a process that could reach to Rome and take more than a year. “I would have resigned if I'd felt like I'd done something wrong,” LaFortune said last week, adding that the conflict put a strain on her wedding preparations. “I couldn't get out of bed. It's just been this cloud. It was supposed to be the best week of my life, and I had to pull myself together for the ceremony.”

The school's president said federal law supports the school's stance. “We have very clear policies on what we expect from Catholic people on our faculty, and there has been a violation of that,” Brother Peter Pontolillo said. “When a person does something that is obviously contrary to everything that our Catholic school stands for, we cannot just look through our fingers.”

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/religion/Central_Catholic_teacher_terminated_over_marriage.html">MORE

- And of course we are all aware of how well, how scrupulously and how diligently that the Catholics are at imposing their "divorce policies", now arent't we???

Can you say Rudy 9u11iani???
==============================================================================
DeSwiss


http://www.atheisttoolbox.com/">The Atheist Toolbox


It's easier to smoke a Camel
than to get into heaven....


"Prayer is just a way of telling god that his divine plan for
you is flawed -- and shockingly stingy" ~ Betty Bowers

on edit: correct grammar

[BlooInBloo]

1. (shrug) Religion.

'nuff said.

[DeSwiss]

4. Nope.

No shrugging, or slack-cutting here for me. I'm calling them all.

[BrklynLiberal]

2. I hope she wins a huge fortune from those small minded, tightassed, hypocrites.

[Xipe Totec]

3. They are tightassed for a reason

they know what company they keep...

[BrklynLiberal]

20. :D

[DeSwiss]

5. The school's lawyer....

...seems to think they're standing on firm ground. If so, I don't see how.

This one will be interesting to watch it unfold. How far are we prepared to allow the Church to interfere into people's lives? Whatever "policies" they might have, those policies can't be allowed to trump the Constitution.

- On the other hand, that's what this is all about. Isn't it???

[TexasProgresive]

7. This is Texas and you can fire at will

It's a right to fire (work) state.

[DeSwiss]

9. Same here in Tennessee.

And yet, "at will" won't fly in every instance. Particularly if she files in federal court. Then her firing and the Texas "at-will" laws could come under scrutiny. Because "at-will" can't be used to discriminate. Which is clearly the case here.

- But you're right, she's got the deck stacked against her in Texas.

[Realityhack]

25. On what basis would they NOT be on firm legal ground?

Private religious school. Asked her to get an annulment... she didn't. She is fucked.
Given that it is a private religious school which has a right to expect their employees to follow whatever twisted fucked up 'moral' code they want I don't think she has much hope.

[virgogal]

6. I don't agree with the church on about anything but why would

she want to stay working there?

Very easily solved.

Quit and move on.

[DeSwiss]

8. Besides the lost paycheck and the fact that the economy is about to tank???

Hmmmmm, I don't know....

But seriously, I don't think anyone would have thought these bastards would actually fire her for getting married. At least I know I wouldn't have. At one time anyway. But not now. It could be that she'd like to have stayed long enough to find another job working for a sane school, with sane personnel policies.

- And one that doesn't make a habit out of sticking their noses into their teacher's personal lives, where it doesn't belong.

[virgogal]

11. I'd believe anything about the Catholic Church----it hasn't served

me well so I dropped out-----35 years ago.

[knitter4democracy]

23. Because it's hard to find teaching jobs in English.

And she wants to show her students that you fight for your rights.

[AnOhioan]

10. Sadly, nothing the church does surprises me anymore

I am so glad I left them years ago.

[DeSwiss]

12. I happy for you....

...and for all of us who have found a way to "break the grip of Religio-Psychosis." Particularly of this variety.

But I think the school had better hope that there aren't any other "Un-Annuleds" lurking there inside that school. And/or have jobs within the dioceses administration.

- Because if there are more, then I can smell an out-of-court settlement in her future.....

[Taitertots]

13. Private Religious School

Why should a private religious school be forced to keep on staff someone who violates the tenants of the religion. I think this is more about the non-christian (which I am) trying to push thier views onto the chruch and financially punish anyone who disagrees. As much as I don't believe thier ideology, I think they should be free to practice it. If that means firing people who live their lives in direct opposition to the ideology they are there to teach, I think that is fine.

[foxfeet]

14. Non-Christian? She is apparently Catholic.

[DeSwiss]

15. Thank you for making my point.

No institution has the right to "dispossess" an individual from their livelihood when the rationale or supposed justification for doing so, is because that person is exercising their civil liberties. Simply because the "Church" says it can discriminate, does not give them the authority to do so. No more so than we allow racial or gender discrimination by secular organizations, thus the church cannot be allowed to inure to themselves a different set of rules from those civil society has set for us all.

If they wish to discriminate legally in our society, then they should become what they are, private clubs. Oh, and give up that precious tax-exempt status. So there's that. Remember, it is the church which exists at our sufferance. It is we who give to them the right to exist "unfettered by the state", through the Constitution. Without the civil authority underpinning it, the church could not exist.

When we succumb to the point where we allow the church to deny a fellow citizen the right to exercise their rights and to survive in this world through their work, then that is when we will have allowed "the church" to control us. And the past centuries of bloodshed, death and war with religion at the epicenter, is its own proof of the need for the church to be restrained at all times.

[IndianaGreen]

17. Why should we have religious schools at all?

They teach hatred and intolerance, whenever they are not abusing the children.

What was it that Marx said about religion?

[Taitertots]

28. Advise from

Communists...

The teachings of Marx have never been used to justify anything bad.:eyes:

[knitter4democracy]

22. Well, there are religious schools, and then there are religious schools.

I was turned down for a teaching job at a Baptist school after passing the principal interview, the head of the dept. interview, and the pastor interview (had to bring my husband for that one). The deacon board didn't like me because I was converting to Eastern Orthodoxy.

Funny, I had no trouble getting jobs in Catholic schools. I taught with Jews, Native American spiritualists, Catholics, lapsed Catholics, and Protestants. Some teachers were even divorced and remarried.

What this comes down to is how conservative the school's principal and/or president are and how conservative the bishop is.

[Taitertots]

16. Excommunication

She may wish to be called a catholic. However it is obvious that she intends to attack the church and if not formally excommunicated, it should be clear she is not catholic. The very act of marrying her husband in direct willfull opposition to the church could be seen as resignation from the church.

Not to mention her cheerleaders advocating financial punishment are probably not catholic. Those people who wish to extort the church to force it to conform to thier ideology instead of its own are not catholic.

[DeSwiss]

18. "...it should be clear she is not catholic."

- Aside from the fact that her faith has absolutely nothing to do with her being fired, particularly since Catholic schools do employ teachers who do not practice their faith, you say that as if it were a bad thing.



on edit: inspiration added

[Taitertots]

19. Violating Church Rules

They hire people who are not catholic, but don't actively and willfully violate church rules. I think it is safe to say if you expect your paycheck to come from a church that you should expect that violating church tenants will get you fired.

I do think it is a good thing for people to be free to run thier religious organizations as they see fit. Not be forced by outsiders to be in opposition to those beliefs.

[knitter4democracy]

21. As a former Catholic high school English teacher, I don't get it.

Granted, I was married before I got my jobs, but I wasn't even Catholic. I'm Eastern Orthodox. One of my fellow teachers at my first school was newly divorced and Jewish (great teacher, well-loved). Granted, the two schools I taught in were under a more liberal group (Ursulines), but still, why would they care about her personal life to that degree? Yeah, they care about the personal life (don't get me started on how awful the health insurance was--they wouldn't pay for anything that compromised fertility, even to save my life), but if she's not Catholic or if her priest is fine with it, who cares?

[DeSwiss]

24. Why indeed?

From the statements in the article, it would appear that this got started when the principal of the school called her into his office to tell her she "must receive a Church-ordained annulment" before she could get married, if she wished to continue teaching at the school. A Church-approved annulment of which would likely take up to a year or more, and seriously impinged upon her life and plans, not to mention costs incurred to this point that she might not be able to recover. How the principal came to know about her personal business (to the extent of having intimate knowledge of her fiancee's past marital life), and why it has any relevance in any way to her job, I haven't a clue.

- The principal is probably an old-school asshat who should have retired years ago. Who knows???

[knitter4democracy]

26. Well, when you're a Catholic high school teacher, there is no personal life.

The kids know everything, the principal knows everything, everyone knows everything. Having grown up in a small town just like that, it didn't bother me at all, but it was a bit weird, given how we were in Cleveland, and you'd think in a big city you'd have more privacy. The Catholic community's smaller, though, and it's much like a small town that way.

I think you've nailed it--it's the principal or the bishop or the school president (depending on whether the school's run by the Diocese, therefore the bishop, or is independent, therefore the school president, who acts like a superintendant). The principal would worry, especially if working under very conservative leaders, because of PR. Anything that could make the school look bad or not perfectly Catholic enough or whatever could affect enrollment. Anything that affects enrollment is bad because that's money and budgets and teacher salaries, etc. When enrollment goes down because of bad PR, heads roll, so most Catholic high school principals are quite adept at knowing all the rumors and all of the marketing issues.

[Dorian Gray]

27. I don't know a Catholic school

that would really care. But, then, I live in NYC, and unless a teacher was sacrificing his or her students to Satan at Friday night raves, there's little that the administration at my husband's school would really care about.

[knitter4democracy]

29. Exactly. I wonder if it's because the principal's super-conservative.

Or if the bishop is, if it's Diocesan.