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The suit filed by Michelle McCusker against a Catholic school and the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn may turn out to be an important case. McCusker, who is unmarried, signed up as a beginner kindergarten teacher in September. A few weeks later, she informed the principal that she was pregnant and did not intend to get married. She was then fired. Much of the media seems convinced that dismissing a teacher over "Catholic morality" is an attempt to revive the Middle Ages. On CNN, Paula Zahn leveled a couple of sardonic putdowns at a defender of the school, William Donohue of the Catholic League for Civil Rights. A jocular column by Adam Sommers in the New York Daily News said: "No harlots, no strumpets, no prostitutes. Next thing you know, con men, adulterers, drug addicts–all sorts of other sinners–will be coming to this church looking for compassion."
Sommers has a point of sorts. The church does not often attempt to weed out sexual or nonsexual sinners from its teaching ranks. And it has moved with excruciating slowness to cope with its pedophile priests. McCusker hasn't been quoted as saying she regrets the unmarried sex, but she argues that a prolife church that believes in redemption should give her a break.
In fact, she has assigned herself a lofty moral peak in the case, saying she "held the Catholic religion to a higher standard." The position of the church and school is obvious enough: An unmarried pregnant teacher, dealing with impressionable 4- or 5-year-olds, is inevitably a role model, here presenting a message clearly contrary to the one the church wants to send. Besides, when she was hired, she accepted the requirements of the teachers' personnel handbook, which says: "A teacher is required to convey the teachings of the Catholic faith by his or her words or actions, demonstrating an acceptance of Gospel values and the Christian tradition."
The dispute is not merely a religious one, because the New York Civil Liberties Union, perhaps the most aggressive of the ACLU national chapters, is supporting McCusker, arguing that her dismissal is an act of illegal discrimination against women. McCusker, of course, would be visibly pregnant in her class now, blinking a message that an unmarried impregnator would not send. Presumably the NYCLU would back down if the school could show that it investigates the sex lives of its unmarried teachers, male and female, and fires those known to be sexually active. This would place the NYCLU on the wrong side of a civil liberties issue, in effect calling for regular violations of the civil liberties of Catholic teachers.
But the NYCLU is already on the wrong side, attempting to brush aside First Amendment guarantees of freedom of religion. In their teaching function–in this case, priests, nuns, and teachers–churches are entitled to hire people committed to their principles; otherwise the churches could not sustain themselves or their constitutionally protected religious character. Janitors and employees who supervise charitable distributions to the poor (often with federal funds) are a different story.
But the civil liberties people have made a big mistake here in framing a direct attack on the ministerial function of a church. If this case reaches the Supreme Court, the church will win.
Posted at 04:00 PM by John Leo
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