Catholic Teacher gets Fired due to Marriage

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In Catholic belief, “marriage is faithful, exclusive and lifelong union between one man and one woman, joined as husband and wife in intimate partnership of life and love.” With this being said, can a Catholic school fire a teacher because he obtained a gay marriage license? Another question to pose is, is it against his right as an employee to lose his job because of his choice in marriage or did he break the contract with the school? My personal opinion is, the teacher knowingly accepted his position to teach in a Catholic school and also knew their religious values and rules, knowing this he broke the contract with the school.
Micheal Griffen lives in New Jersey, New Jersey was the 14th state to recognize gay marriage. The right was passed this October. As of June 5th, 2013, there are 594,391 gay couples and 55% of Americans strongly favor gay marriage. According to the New York Post, Father James McCloskely head master said, “The faculty at Catholic schools must require to follow all the Catholic commandments”. The Catholic schools stance is that knowing this upon hire, that this teacher broke his contract and thus emanating to his firing. According to the catholic school teacher contract from March 2011, it states “ a teacher may be discharged and causes for such termination or discharged may include; gross immoral behavior not consistent with the moral teaching of the Roman Catholic church (as fully described in the Governance No. 36 which is specially adopted by reference); violation of any provision of this contract or any local school or policy procedure, action which will cause revocation of the teacher corticated to teach any other ground which in the good faith determination.” Teachers like any other prof...

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...employment. Just like the Wayne county police, you cannot work as a police officer in Wayne County if you do not live in that city. They have to sign a contract saying they live in that city of employment or they are unable to work there and can get fired for breaking that contract they have signed. I believe that a person has the right to marry whomever they want. This is not a gay rights versus the Catholic Church issue. Regarding this just like any other place of employment, if you break a contract there could be consequences resulting in losing your job.

Works Cited

Landau, Joel. "Gay Teacher Fired from Catholic School for Trying to Wed Partner." NY Daily News. NY Daily News, n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.
"Contract For Catholic School Teacher." Teacher Contract Form. The National Association of Private Catholic and Independent Schools, n.d. Web. 9 Dec. 2013

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