Washington Post fires distress rockets about another religious liberty vs. LGBTQ+ case

Yes, here we go again. The first time I read through this Washington Post story — “Firing of gay Catholic school teacher could test latest Supreme Court ruling” — I thought it was another botched mainstream press story about a case in which a doctrinally defined academic community (in this case a Catholic school) fired a teacher who could not affirm the school’s doctrines (think Catholic Catechism).

That’s part of what is happening here. Once again, the journalists involved in reporting and editing this story failed to mention whether the school did or did not require teachers, staff and students to sign a covenant in which they affirmed Catholic teachings or, at the very least, agreed not to take public actions that rejected them.

That’s a classic “ministerial exception” case. The key issue is whether administrators have clearly stated the role that a doctrinal covenant plays in the life of their school. Hold that thought.

But this story has another goal — which is to fire distress rockets that the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent 303 Creative decision could strengthen the case of religious school leaders that want to employ faculty members and staff who affirm the teachings of their faith. The key word here is “bolster,” as in this secondary definition: “support or strengthen; prop up.” Look for that in the Post overture:

When Lonnie Billard announced on Facebook in October 2014 that he was engaged to his partner of 14 years, he knew not everyone in his social circles would celebrate the news. Same-sex marriage had only been legal in his home state of North Carolina for two weeks.
“If you don’t agree with this,” he wrote, “keep it to yourself.”
He received only congratulations in reply. But two months later, while the substitute teacher and his fiancé were celebrating Christmas with one of his colleagues at Charlotte Catholic High School, Billard mentioned that he hadn’t heard from the school about filling in during her post-holiday vacation.
That’s when Billard learned he was no longer being employed by the Catholic school because he was marrying a man. Billard sued the school for sex discrimination and won in 2021. That decision is being challenged by a nonprofit firm involved in multiple high-profile fights on behalf of religious conservatives, which says last month’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in favor of a web designer who did not want to work for gay couples bolsters its case.

In other words, the 303 Creative case might strengthen the already established First Amendment right of doctrinally defined religious institutions — think voluntary associations and private schools — to hire and fire personnel based on doctrinal standards. That would be bad. There is no need for the Post to consider how these First Amendment cases would defend the rights of progressive believers.

Dear editors at the Associated Press:

Let’s discuss a few issues behind your recent feature that was sent to newspapers everywhere with this headline: “Barrett was trustee at private school with anti-gay policies.”

The key, of course, is “policies” — a vague term that way too many mainstream journalists consistently use in place of the simple word “doctrines.”

Yes, of course, traditional Catholic schools have “policies” that affect students, faculty and staff. However, these policies are almost always attempts to teach and defend the doctrines of the church. It’s significant that the word “doctrine” does not appear anywhere in this long AP piece and the same goes for the word “catechism.” Also, “scripture” is used once — by a progressive Catholic stressing that conservative Catholics are “literalists” when reading the Bible.

Anyone who has covered Catholic education for a decade or two knows what is going on here. Yes, Democrats are furious about Amy Coney Barrett’s arrival on the high court. But this Associated Press story is built on divisions inside the American Catholic church, both on moral theology linked to LGBTQ issues and fights over the goals of Catholic education in colleges, universities, seminaries and private schools such as the ones linked to Barrett and People of Praise.

With that in mind, let’s add two other factors to this case that are ignored (or all but ignored) by AP.

First of all, once upon a time there was a man named St. Pope John Paul II. In 1990, this pope issued a document entitled “Ex Corde Ecclesiae (From the Heart of the Church)” focusing on issues in Catholic education. You could tell that it was a controversial document (a) because it said Catholic doctrines should be taught and defended in Catholic schools, (b) progressive Catholics, speaking through the press, went ballistic and (c) it took almost a decade of fighting for American Catholic church leaders to act (sort of) on the pope’s guidelines.

This fight was primarily about colleges and universities, but the principals in Ex Corde are relevant to fights, these days, about classroom and student-life issues in Catholic schools at all levels. So what was John Paul II saying?