A Roman Catholic school in Pennsylvania
has fired a gay teacher because he planned to marry his partner of
12 years.
Michael Griffin explained that his
sexual orientation was not a secret to administrators and faculty at
Holy Ghost Preparatory School in Bensalem, where he taught French and
Spanish for 12 years, but when he applied for a marriage license in
New Jersey, he said that he was promptly fired.
Griffin was called into the office of
Father James McCloskey, the school's president, after he notified the
school's principal that he was planning to apply for a marriage
license and might be late for work on Friday.
McCloskey asked if he was planning to
marry a man, Griffin answered “yes,” and McCloskey responded by
saying that he had no choice but to terminate his employment at the
school.
“I really didn't think that it would
happen,” Griffin told ABC
affiliate WPVI. “At our school we talk about it's a community.
Our motto is 'One heart, one mind.'”
“We applied this morning and on the
same day he's fired from his job,” said Griffin's partner Vincent
Giannetto. “So it kind of flipped things upside down for us.”
McCloskey said in a statement that
Griffin's decision to marry “contradicts the terms of his teaching
contract at our school, which required all faculty and staff to
follow the teachings of the Church as a condition of their
employment. In discussion with Mr. Griffin, he acknowledged that he
was aware of this provision, yet he said that he intended to go ahead
with the ceremony.”
Griffin stated that Holy Ghost, a
private all boys Catholic high school, had “shown their true
colors” and “I certainly don't want to work there again after
I've seen how they treated me.”
The firing is not the first over gay
nuptials at a Catholic institution. In October, a
lesbian teacher from Little Rock lost her job after she married
in New Mexico. A
California teacher was terminated in August after he married his
longtime partner. A teacher last year lost
two Catholic jobs after he exchanged vows with his partner of 19
years. Also last year, a
Charlotte, North Carolina church fired its openly gay music director
after he married his longtime partner in New York.