the Associated Press. He was fired in June 2019 after the church required Catholic schools to enforce a clause that prohibited employees from marrying someone of the same sex.His husband, Layton Payne-Elliott, taught at another private school in Indianapolis, Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School, which the archdiocese stripped of its Catholic identity because it refused to fire teachers in same-sex unions.In August 2019, the archdiocese requested the case be dismissed while citing the First Amendment as its defense.
It wasn’t dismissed until May 2021.LGBTQ+ rights group Lambda Legal submitted a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Payne Elliot, which was cited in the appeals ruling. “What a wonderful unanimous appellate court ruling.