With students and alumni of a Catholic school in Pennsylvania rallying around a teacher who was fired for planning to marry his partner in New Jersey, where same-sex marriage is legal, a state lawmaker proposed an amendment to prevent such discriminatory practices.
But anti-gay activists are defending the firing, Patrick J. Reilly of The Cardinal Newman Society told LifeSiteNews today that the proposed legislation is “as ludicrous as it is dangerous to basic human freedoms,” adding that the gay teacher “scandalized students” by hoping to marry his partner.
“Senator Leach’s bill to legislate away morality even within the walls of a Catholic school is as ludicrous as it is dangerous to basic human freedoms,” Patrick J. Reilly, president of the Catholic education watchdog organization The Cardinal Newman Society, told LifeSiteNews.com.
“The facts of the case are quite clear. Holy Ghost did not fire a teacher because of same-sex attraction,” he said. “They fired him because of his public and serious sin, which has scandalized students whose families are privately paying for Catholic formation.”
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Francis Viglietta of the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference said the law “in effect would limit our ability to serve the people of this commonwealth in ways that are consistent with Catholic teaching.”
Amy B. Hill, communications director for the state’s Catholics, called the bill “an inappropriate use of governmental power to coerce religious institutions into abandoning their faith.”
