I'm utterly disgusted, yet not sure how I feel about this: an openly gay music director at a local Catholic church was recently fired due to his sexual orientation. Apart from the bigotry and obvious hypocrisy (given the Church's lenient treatment of closeted gay priests and pedophiles), as an agnostic straight guy (even slightly anti-Christian) I still feel that any religion should be free to discriminate in whatever arbitrary manner it chooses. Maybe.
In 2004 Charles Philyaw became the full-time director of music liturgy at St. Andrew Catholic Church in Verona (a suburb of Madison, WI). He was upfront with the parish priest before his hiring about being in a gay relationship.
Recently, Philyaw's partner went through church training so that he could serve the Eucharist as a layperson. That apparently made a few people squeamish:
Philyaw learned that five parishioners had raised concerns about him and his partner being so prominently involved in church activities. Bishop Robert Morlino's office became involved, leading to his dismissal, Philyaw said.
As a result, Philyaw and his partner are likely to lose their home in the near future.
Bishop Morlino, by the way, is a well-known asshole. In fact, he's quite incompatible with the general political sentiment in the Madison area (although I think his region includes Milwaukee). Amongst other things he serves as Chair of the Board of Advisers for the infamous Army School of the Americas. And that's his better side:
Morlino was criticized for requiring every parish in his diocese to hear his recorded message addressing a wide range of political issues including the protection of traditional marriage, capital punishment, and stem-cell research. In his message, delivered just before the November 2006 elections, Morlino urged Catholics to vote in defense of traditional marriage and to adopt a pro-life stance on the issues of capital punishment and embryonic stem cell research. Morlino has since been accused of "electioneering" by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign for his statements to parishioners of his diocese urging them to vote in support of traditional marriage.
Here's the big loophole in the law:
Wisconsin added sexual orientation to its anti-discrimination statutes in 1982. However, churches are allowed to hire or fire without regard to discrimination laws if an employee's main duties are ecclesiastical or ministerial, said Tamara Packard, a Madison lawyer whose primary area of practice is employment law.
From my point of view Morlino and the five parishioners can all rot in hell (they are at least getting hate mail), but I don't have a dog in this fight - other than from a basic human rights standpoint. What do you think?