The Progressive Pulse: “A federal judge has ruled that a Charlotte Catholic school wrongfully terminated a substitute teacher after finding out he got married to a man.
Lonnie Billard taught English and later drama full-time at Charlotte High before switching to primarily teaching English part-time in 2012. The school, part of the Mecklenburg Area Catholic Schools system, terminated his employment in December 2014, two months after he announced on Facebook his engagement to his long-time partner, who also taught briefly at a school within the system.
The school, claimed that it terminated Billard because of his statements about gay marriage on Facebook rather than the fact that he was gay, and sought First Amendment protection for the firing.
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge for the Western District of North Carolina Max Cogburn Jr. acknowledged that religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and forms of expression in some instances, but also determined that “Defendants admit that while they fired Plaintiff for his actions, they would only have reprimanded a straight teacher who spoke positively about same-sex marriage.””