Catholic Relief Services’ Defense of Discrimination Helps Gut Maryland LGBTQ+ Protections

This week, Bondings 2.0 is featuring series on ways in which some Catholics and their allies are using the U.S. legal system to stop and even rollback LGBTQ+ rights. Yesterday’s post covered Colorado church leaders’ lawsuit challenging state LGBTQ+ non-discrimination protections. Today’s post is about a court ruling in a church-related employment discrimination lawsuit.

Maryland’s Supreme Court has ruled against an LGBTQ+ church worker who filed a discrimination lawsuit against Catholic Relief Services after the organization denied healthcare benefits to his same-gender spouse.

In a 4-3 ruling, the court decided that sexual orientation is not a protected class under the state’s bans on sex-based discrimination in its Fair Employment Practices Act and Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, according to the National Catholic Reporter.

The state court’s ruling is the latest development in the federal suit, Doe v. Catholic Relief Services. Back in 2017, “Doe,” a Catholic Relief Services (CRS) employee, was told that his husband could not receive health insurance benefits for his spouse given they were in a same-gender marriage. CRS’ lawyers have argued that the organization does “not have to provide spousal benefits to someone the Catholic Church does not recognize as a spouse.”

In 2018, “Doe” filed a discrimination complaint against CRS, which is based in Baltimore, with the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission. In 2022, the case was taken to the U.S. District Court of Baltimore where the court ruled in “Doe’s” favor. Judge Catherine C. Blake stated that CRS violated Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 by denying the health benefits. Going forward, CRS would be required to provide health insurance coverage for the spouses of LGBTQ+  employees, as long as the employees’ jobs are not considered ministerial.

However, Blake also ruled that Maryland’s Supreme Court should analyze whether state laws did indeed include sexual orientation as a protected class. The Daily Record explains:

“The majority also analyzed a religious exception to the Fair Employment Practices Act. When lawmakers added sexual orientation as a protected category in 2001, they also added an exemption for religious employers.

“The justices found that the exemption is intended to protect religious organizations from certain employment discrimination claims  ‘brought by employees who perform duties that directly further the core mission … of the religious entity.’”

Justice Michele D. Hotten of the Maryland Supreme Court objected to the majority’s ruling, recognizing the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bostock decision in 2020 that included sexual orientation as part of protections against sex-based discrimination. Hotten believes that the state court should have adopted the “Bostock standard.” She said the state Supreme Court’s ruling was “inconsistent with federal law, contrary to how Maryland interprets such statutes, and undermines public policy.”

Maryland’s attorney general, Anthony Brown, called the state Supreme Court’s decision “a disheartening setback.”

Anthony May, an attorney representing “Doe,” told The Daily Record that the court’s decision “fails to appreciate the overlapping nature that discrimination has on individual employees on the basis of sex and sexual orientation.” He hopes that the Maryland General Assembly will “take the steps needed to ensure that all workers are treated with the respect and dignity they deserve.”

Left undetermined by the Maryland Supreme Court’s ruling is whether “Doe” falls  under a religious exemption. CRS has claimed it is currently reviewing what all the legal development means for its employment practices. However, May is confident that the evidence is in “Doe’s” favor. The plaintiff’s court file states:

“The lines CRS has drawn — by employing persons who identify as LGBT but withholding spousal health benefits from persons who are not spouses in the eyes of the church, or by providing benefits to children of gay employees but not those employees’ partners are arbitrary.”

Catholic-related questions about religious exemptions in employment law are popping up elsewhere, too, which may have implications for LGBTQ+ church workers, reported Rolling Stone. In a unanimous ruling, the New Jersey Supreme Court sided with a Catholic school, St. Theresa School, Kenilworth, which fired a pregnant teacher, Victoria Crisitello, for having premarital sex because the school was exempt from state non-discrimination protections for pregnant people.

—Sarah Cassidy (she/her), New Ways Ministry, August 31, 2023