A state court in Massachusetts has ruled that a Catholic preparatory school violated the state’s antidiscrimination law when it rescinded a job offer to a man because he was married to another man.
According to BuzzFeed News, Matthew Barrett had accepted a job as Food Service Director at the Fontbonne Academy, a Catholic girls school. On his employment forms, he listed his husband as his emergency contact — a move that led the school to rescind the job offer.
On Wednesday, Superior Court Associate Justice Douglas Wilkins ruled that Fontbonne discriminated against Barrett based on sexual orientation and rejected the school’s arguments as to why it should be exempted from the state law or otherwise not subject to its employment discrimination ban.
Barrett’s lawyers from Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders praised the judge’s ruling as “the first of its kind in the country.”
See also Boston Globe article.
This development raises the question of how long it will be until one of our own schools or institutions are faced with a similar anti-discrimination lawsuit. And when that day comes, will we be "found faithful"? (Revelation 2:10; 1 Cor. 4:2).