A federal court on Thursday dismissed
an Indiana woman's lawsuit claiming she was unlawfully fired when she
refused to process marriage licenses for gay and lesbian couples.
Linda Summers, a former deputy clerk at
the Harrison County Clerk's Office, filed the lawsuit last year
against the county and County Clerk Sally Whitis.
Summers claimed in court records that
her termination violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
which prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of
religion.
Whitis wrote in an email to employees
that they were required by state law to process applications for
marriage licenses being sought by gay couples. The email was sent in
October, 2014, a few days after the Supreme Court refused an appeal
sought by the state to a lower court's ruling that struck down
Indiana's ban on such unions. Summers was fired in December of that
year after she refused to help a gay couple seeking a marriage
license.
“A few months after the Seventh
Circuit affirmed this court's decision to enjoin the state of Indiana
from enforcing its ban on same-sex marriage, a same-sex couple came
to the Clerk's Office in hopes of securing a marriage license,”
Judge Richard L. Young wrote in his ruling. “Summers told her
boss, Sally Whitis, that she could not process the application.
Whitis replied that she was required to do so as part of her job
duties, but Summers still refused. Whitis consequently processed the
application herself. The next day, Summers submitted a religious
accommodation request and Whitis terminated her employment for
insubordination.”
“To be clear, the court does not
question the sincerity of Summers' beliefs,” Young
added. “She maintains that 'it's not God's law to have
[same-sex couples] marry,' … and has pointed to select verses from
the Bible in support. That is fine; she has every right to believe
that. However, that belief, no matter how sincerely espoused, does
not objectively conflict with the purely administrative duty to
process marriage licenses. Summers' desire to avoid handling forms
related to activities of which she personally disapproves is not
protected by federal law. Title VII is not a license for employees
to perform only those duties that meet their private approval.”
According to The
Indianapolis Star, Summers is a member of the First Capital
Christian Church in Corydon and had worked at the Clerk's Office for
about six years.