NYCLU Sues Queens Catholic School Over Unwed Teacher’s Pregnancy
Posted on November 23, 2005
NEW YORK (AP) _ The New York Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal discrimination complaint against a Queens Catholic school, charging that it unjustly fired an unmarried teacher for being pregnant.
“I don’t understand how a religion that prides itself on forgiving and on valuing life could terminate me because I’m pregnant and choosing to have this baby,” Michelle McCusker said Monday at a conference to announce the suit.
Forgiveness is one thing, but it does not take away the consequences of irresponsibility. I applaud the lady for keeping the baby, but I can understand how an organization based on principles and morality would not want someone that has broken their value codes teaching children.
The 26-year-old preschool teacher was fired last month from St. Rose of Lima in the Rockaway Beach section of Queens, according to published reports. The Diocese of Brooklyn was also named in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint.
“This is a difficult situation for every person involved, but the school had no choice but to follow the principles contained in the teachers’ personnel handbook,” diocese spokesman Frank DeRosa said in a statement.
The handbook says that each teacher must “convey the teachings of the Catholic faith by his or her words and actions.”
So apparently she knew the consequences before she did the action. How this violates her civil liberties is beyond me.
Lawyers at the NYCLU, which filed the suit on McCusker’s behalf, argued that administrators enforced the policy in a way that disproportionately effects women.
“The school used her pregnancy as a marker,” attorney Cassandra Stubbs said. “How do they determine if male employees engage in premarital sex?”
I’m sorry, but I am totally calling B.S. on this defense. Does the ACLU have evidence that this school has found a male that engaged in premarital or extramarital sex that they found out about and did not fire him? Using the pregnancy as a marker? Well, of course they did. Is it not evidence she had sex outside of marriage? If a male in this same position got a woman pregnant outside of wedlock the same rules would apply to him. Why does the ACLU want this religious institution to compromise its principles?
Update: Due to certain commenters, I want to clarify something. I am not saying that the Catholic Church is an institution of moral clarity. While they are based on morals, many within its ranks have proven not to uphold them. What I am saying is that this certain school is based on moral teachings, and to have someone that is supposed to be teaching those morals break them, and continue teaching them is the situation we have. I agree that the Catholic Church has done next to nothing in punishing Priests who have molested little boys, and that makes me angry as well. However, I have seen no evidence that this particular school has done that, and unless someone can provide that evidence, their argument has no standing.
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17 Responses to “NYCLU Sues Queens Catholic School Over Unwed Teacher’s Pregnancy”
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Syndicate Me
Man, I just picked that up over at Carol Platt Liebau’s and was going to expand my comment there into a post…
May still.
You called the Catholic Church an organization based on principles and morality?!
This is the same organization that for decades has been covering up for pedophile priests who rape young boys and allowing them to stay in their positions where they can continue to commit more heinous crimes.
This is another example of how immoral and evil the Catholic Church is. I can’t think of too many things more immoral than firing a woman from her job because she became pregnant, except maybe allowing priests to rape young boys.
Of course the ACLU has a problem with a policy that discourages fornication. The fewer unwed births we have the fewer liberals will be born. Indeed, had the 46 million-plus who died as a result of Roe v. Wade lived, most of them would have likely voted for Gore (at least the ones born before 1982). The reasoning being that more liberals get abortions than conservatives, and most children grow up to share their parents beliefs.
I do have one objection to the school’s policy. Won’t it discourage unwed moms from having their babies, as opposed to killing them before their bellies get big. I support the Catholic Church’s position, but there is a potential negative for us die-hard pro-lifers.
Nice…
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You are a both brain-dead and a hypocrite, not an uncommon combination. On one hand, you constantly cry foul at the ACLU for supposedly trying to secularize America, blah blah blah. Now comes a group ready to defend a teacher so she can keep her job at a CATHOLIC school, and you pull the [edited] morality card, all the while ignoring both your own raucous warmongering and the notoriously immoral standing of the Church as a whole.
“apparantly” “marraige”
It’s APPARENTLY. And MARRIAGE. What is it like to be as uneducated as you, yet remain busy trying like hell to write things aimed at convincing others you have a worthwhile point of view?
“How this violates her civil liberties is beyond me.”
That much I believe. Maybe the fact that getting knocked up when unmarried isn’t a crime? [edited].
This blog is for [edited]
NO PROFANITY… and last warning … Lobo
I can’t believe that morals have always a double standard in the Catholic church. The woman probably decide not to have an abortion and now she is punished for carrying on with her pregnancy. Why is it a condition to be pregnant and married? What a double standard again.
HOW IN HEAVEN is this woman going to sustain her kid without a job???
It is the same as all those fanatic pro-lifers that do their best to avoid abortions, but once the baby is borned where are they to sustain the baby so the mother can work??? WHERE??
Why not instead use the example at school as a positive example. CATHOLIC CHURCH this is the 21st Century, OPEN your eyes SEX happens every day, every where. MOVE ON…
If she had quietly aborted she’d still have her job. Nuts!
http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/fs-preg.html
Pregnancy and Maternity Leave
An employer may not single out pregnancy related conditions for special procedures to determine an employee’s ability to work. However, an employer may use any procedure used to screen other employees’ ability to work. For example, if an employer requires its employees to submit a doctor’s statement concerning their inability to work before granting leave or paying sick benefits, the employer may require employees affected by pregnancy related conditions to submit such statements.
If an employee is temporarily unable to perform her job due to pregnancy, the employer must treat her the same as any other temporarily disabled employee; for example, by providing modified tasks, alternative assignments, disability leave or leave without pay.
Pregnant employees must be permitted to work as long as they are able to perform their jobs. If an employee has been absent from work as a result of a pregnancy related condition and recovers, her employer may not require her to remain on leave until the baby’s birth. An employer may not have a rule which prohibits an employee from returning to work for a predetermined length of time after childbirth.
Employers must hold open a job for a pregnancy related absence the same length of time jobs are held open for employees on sick or disability leave.
Excuse me Mr. Rat, but the fact that fornication isn’t a crime won’t get you very far when you swear an oath sexual morality in accordance with the Bible then turn around break it. The Church, since it is protected by the separation of church and state card you lib idiots always play, is free to fire her for whatever they want. The only civil rights that would be violated would be the rights of the church to practice its religion, which is what the church did in this case. Its not just Catholics that would have fired her by the way, any protestant church worth anything would have done the same thing. Get an education and come back later. And to you Monica, should we give this woman a cookie because she chose not to murder her baby? How about choosing to keep one’s legs closed since the church they are working in prohibits the activity? Bet you never dreamed of personal responsibility have you? She knew the rules and doctrines when she got the job. Period. And now you Beelzebub: You claim right-wingers are against America and all that it stands for? You mean like the Constitution that protects the churches right to practice their religion, which includes the firing of people that fail to meet standards of their faith? Go back to Communist Russia you ignorant moron. Its left-wing liberals that have this country in the middle of a war on terror, since it was libs that left Bin Laden go 4 times. Its communists like yourself that want to take away the American Dream by putting a cap on how much money someone (like an oil company) can make. You better look in the mirror before you go saying something stupid like that. The ACLU and liberals as a whole have done nothing but try and rewrite the Constitution and the Bill of Rights since this country was founded. If you want sexual freedom to screw whoever and whatever you want whenever you want, don’t join a Christian church.
apostle, you’re absolutely right that the school has the legal right to [edited] this teacher for whatever reason they like. This, however, doesn’t negate the hypocrisy or stupidity inherent in doing so. I also have the “right” to believe in fairy tales, complain about faggotry, and tell people they’re bound to suffer for all eternity for (gasp) fornication, but that doesn’t mean I should.
That you would blither on in suport of any institution mandating that sentient adults “keep her legs closed” just because they don’t own wedding rings marks both you and the institution as laughingly backward.
I fully support the right of any enterprise to fire anyone, for any reason. If I found out someone with strong religious convictions was working for me I’d lose him or her in a heartbeat, because I’m not a fan of keeping puritanical, worthless sub-human delusionals on my staff.
Then in that case my friend, all atheists, deists, and liberals would be excluded from your staff. It is laughable that you call Christians and other people of faith delusional when the fairy tale of fairy tales is that this world was formed from nothing out of nowhere. It is also laughable that you call us hypocrites when it is this woman who claimed Christianity, took a position in a church, and then becomes pregnant out of wedlock.
“…the fairy tale of fairy tales is that this world was formed from nothing out of nowhere.”
I see you’re a biology and cosmology expert now. Benighted [edited]
“Then in that case my friend, all atheists, deists, and liberals would be excluded from your staff.”
Not surprisingly, your reading is for crap. I imagine you’re one of those cross-eyed Christ-[edited] who yammers on about atheism and science supposedly being as religious in nature as Christianity. Here’s one of many key differences: Christians, by and large, are miserably stupid people, suitable only for menial jobs, incest, blind worship of invisible geeks, and gravitating toward ramshackle hole-in-the-wall Web sites like this one.
Know any Christians who have gottenm divorces, Bible-boy? I do. I also know a few who have gotten remarried in their own churches. That’s known as adultery, but of course they conveniently ignore this, just as they conveniently ignore parts of the Bible that inconvenience them while making pariahs out of people like this schoolteacher. The bottom line is that you’re just envious it wasn’t you who banged the broad, and couldn’t get laid in a Thai whorehouse.
Sorry Mr. Sinistere, but I’m married, have been for 6 years, and am not obsessed with being laid. You’ve made a lot of claims that need demonstrating, but like any atheist idiot, fail to do so. I thought I was debating with someone intelligent, but I guess I was wrong. Very hypocritical of “tolerant” liberals to rant and rave about the injustices and hypocrisy of the Christian faith. While atheists fail to realize that by claiming there is no moral law giver but me, myself, and I, they are saying that they themselves have no right to bitch about Christians or conservatives way of thinking, because after all whatever is right for me is all that matters. So my desire to abort liberals and eat them for dinner should not be condemned by anyone. How much do you weigh?
Funny, because my cousin who is the ethics teacher at his Catholic School got his g/f pregnant, and wasn’t canned. The message of the Church is clear: if you’re a man you can boink whatever you like (unless it is another grown adult man) but if you’re a woman, be very very afraid.
Also, although you claim that the Church’s position is biblically-based, it is not, but instead is based on non-Biblical doctrines and interpretations. Which scriptures specifically disallow sex before marriage? Answer: none. None of the sayings attributed to Jesus address it, and in the OT it is never presented as a sin, only as an offense against the value of the woman as a marriage partner. In the NT “fornication” is usually a translation of the Greek that is generally iffy.
There’s no clear prohibition in the Bible against premarital sex. It’s just another shining example of the way Christians reading their desired interpretation into their text.
Michael
Funny? First of all we aren’t even speaking of the same school. Second of all, that guy should have been fired, if that particular school had it in the regulations.
As a reverted Catholic who was in the same situation, I understand both points of view. I was an unwed pregnant woman who taught in a Catholic school. I left before I was showing (at the end of the school year) and had not told my boss in fear that I would lose the insurance that I desperately needed in order to have my baby. The school is legally and morally correct in their decision, however they should allow her to keep insurance until the alloted time for her to apply for individual coverage (6 weeks after birth and given the okay by both doctors).
for those who do not understand where it is written in the Bible about no premarital sex. THat’s an easy one, just look at the Ten Commandments, Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery. Having sex with someone who is not your spouse, is adultery. Your boyfriend/girlfried does not qualify as your spouse.