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Quote# 87175

INDIANAPOLIS -- An Indiana teacher who says she was fired from a Roman Catholic school for using in vitro fertilization to try to get pregnant is suing in a case that could set up a legal showdown over reproductive and religious rights.

Emily Herx's lawsuit accuses the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend and St. Vincent de Paul school in Fort Wayne of discrimination for her firing last June. Herx, 31, of Hoagland, Ind., says that the church pastor told her she was a "grave, immoral sinner" and that a scandal would erupt if anyone learned she had undergone in vitro fertilization, or IVF.

The Roman Catholic Church shuns IVF, which involves mixing egg and sperm in a laboratory dish and transferring a resulting embryo into the womb. Herx said she was fired despite exemplary performance reviews in her eight years as a language arts teacher.

Legal experts say Herx's case illustrates a murky area in the debate over separation of church and state that even the U.S. Supreme Court has failed to clearly address.

Diocese officials said in a statement issued to The Associated Press on Wednesday that the lawsuit challenges its rights as a religious institution "to make religious based decisions consistent with its religious standards on an impartial basis."

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in January that religious workers can't sue their employers for job discrimination because anti-discrimination laws allow for a "ministerial exception." But the justices failed to define who was and who wasn't a religious employee.

"The Supreme Court didn't give us a kind of neat little on-off test as to who's a minister and who isn't," said Rick Garnett, associate dean and professor of law at Notre Dame Law School.

In a similar case in Ohio, a federal judge last month gave the go-ahead for a trial in a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Cincinnati by a parochial school teacher who was fired after she became pregnant through artificial insemination, which the church is also against. The archdiocese fired Christa Dias in 2010, saying the single woman violated church doctrine.

U.S. District Judge Arthur Spiegel said in his March 29 ruling that the ministerial exception did not apply because Dias was a non-Catholic computer teacher with no role in ministering or teaching Catholic doctrine.


Pastor of St. Vincent de Paul School, Huffington Post 33 Comments [5/1/2012 3:21:39 AM]
Fundie Index: 42
Submitted By: Brendan Rizzo
WTF?! || meh
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#1398546
aaa

This is why you unionize, people.

5/1/2012 7:35:01 PM
#1398581


I knew the American legislative branch is FUBAR, but the judicial branch as well?

There has been and always will be insane religious leaders; stupid, misogynistic pastors are pretty much dime a dozen.

But when the highest court in the land unanimously decide that it is fine for an organization to trample over the rights of the individual as long as it falls into the category of 'ministerial exception', and taking into account that there is NO dissenting opinion: I think the problem is much bigger than a few fundie priests abusing their power.

5/1/2012 10:31:40 PM
#1398632
Thirddrop

@ Skynight

As a lapsed Catholic I'm fairly sure the church teaches that 'personhood' is not achieved until implantation occurs. Therefore zygotes destroyed before implantation cannot be aborted. Further, Aquinas taught that personhood was not achieved until 'The Quickening', at approximately 3 months.

Also from an article written by Jennie Rothenberg Gritz @ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/04/should-catholic-schools-be-able-to-fire-teachers-over-fertility-treatments/256427/

"That's the short version of the story. But according to Reverend Richard Sparks, the full truth is a lot more complicated.

Sparks is a priest at Old St. Mary's Church on the South Side of Chicago. He knows the nearby Fort Wayne diocese, where he almost served as a pastor back in the 1970s. He also holds a Ph.D. in bioethics, which means he spends a lot of time tiptoeing through theological minefields. But he believes the Herx case was less about Church teachings than about politics.

Sparks spoke to me over the phone about sexuality and "personhood," Augustine and Aquinas -- and the "Rick Santorum-like Catholics" who are steering the Church further and further to the right."

5/2/2012 4:45:40 AM
#1398651
Dr.Shrinker

"...the church pastor told her she was a 'grave, immoral sinner'"

Isn't everyone according to them? What's the problem?

5/2/2012 6:15:13 AM
#1398932
smartz

This is so stupid I can't even bother to create a witty comeback. Seriously, the Church's actions in this case doesn't even begin to describe the inanity.

5/3/2012 6:58:28 AM
#1399155
Agahnim

Come on, Indy residents. I've been to your hometown several times in my life and I know not every one of you is this ridiculous. Please get rid of nutjobs like these if you're reading this, OK?

5/4/2012 1:19:06 AM
#1399792
Godlesspanther

Church -- I know that this concept is way, way, way too advanced for you, but let's give it a try. I'll go slow, try to keep up with me. This is going to be very difficult for you so I need your undivided attention.

None -- of -- your -- fucking -- business.


Did you get that?


Fuck it, it's like trying to teach calculus to a dead goldfish.

5/6/2012 8:07:27 PM
#1400193


Religion makes life more complicated than it needs to be.

5/7/2012 10:28:36 PM
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