The Detroit Archdiocese on Wednesday
removed a lesbian music teacher, declaring her “morally unfit” to
keep the job she had been doing for three decades.
According to the Detroit Free Press,
Terry Gonda, 59, was told in a June 12 email: “The Archdiocese is
choosing to activate its morality clause to terminate your
employment.”
Gonda started working at St. John
Fisher in Auburn Hills during a dark period of her life. She said
that she was lost and suicidal following a breakup. The parish
accepted her. In 2011, following 17 years together, Gonda married
Kirsti Reeve, 51. Reeve, who is British, moved to Michigan in 2000.
“She took me to St. John's,” Reeve
remembered. “The pastor gave me a huge hug and said, 'Welcome
home.'”
Their relationship was “embraced by
their parish family and pastor,” the
outlet wrote.
Gonda called her firing “dehumanizing.”
“It's a shot to the head from
headquarters,” she said. “The dehumanization of this is just not
right … my heart just hurts because I have an outpouring of love
for them. I love them. I believe that they believe they're doing the
right thing – they're trying to protect the church.”
The Roman Catholic Church, which views
gay relationships as sinful, has taken a strong stand against
same-sex couples who marry.
According to New
Ways Ministry, a group that advocates on behalf of LGBT
Catholics, roughly 90 church workers “have lost their jobs in
LGBT-related employment disputes” since 2007.
(Related: Catholic
minister says he was fired over liking a gay friend's wedding post on
Facebook.)