Federal Judge Sides with Gay Employee Who Sued Catholic Relief Services
A federal court has ruled that in refusing to provide healthcare benefits for the husband of a gay employee, Catholic Relief Services has broken federal anti-discrimination laws.
For secular jobs, the Baltimore-based humanitarian organization must offer coverage to the spouses of gay employees, U.S. District Judge Catherine C.
Blake, of the District of Maryland, said in her ruling.The employee, known as John Doe, claimed in his lawsuit that he was originally told that Catholic Relief Services would provide health coverage for employees and spouses, no matter their sex.
But a year after he was hired in 2016, he found out that same-sex couples were not covered when his husband’s coverage was dropped, with CRS saying it had mistakenly granted him coverage in the first place.In her decision, Blake found that, by rescinding the coverage the organization was in violation of federal prohibitions on sex-based discrimination contained in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.“A woman married to a man would not have lost spousal health insurance benefits as Doe did,” she wrote. “When CRS discriminates against a gay employee like Doe, it necessarily and intentionally discriminates against that employee in part because of sex.’Although there are existing exemptions from nondiscrimination law for religious-based organizations, Blake wrote that Doe’s job did not count as it was not tied directly to the religious aspects of the organization. “CRS insists that any judicial inquiry into this case inevitably requires an inquiry into matters of Catholic faith and doctrine,” she wrote.
