Gay Indianapolis Teachers Targeted by Catholic Church Are Married

Recently, reports of two instances in which the Archdiocese of Indianapolis ordered Catholic schools to fire their gay teachers have been circulating.

In one case, Cathedral High School ultimately bowed to pressure and fired the teacher. In the other, Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School refused, and the archdiocese stripped the school of its Catholic title.

Turns out that the teachers in these two cases were, in fact, married to each other.

Joshua Payne-Elliott was the Cathedral teacher who lost his job for being gay. He was at the school for 13 years, teaching social studies and world language, and says the school had already offered to renew his contract for another year when the command of the archdiocese came down.

The identities of the teachers became public on Wednesday, when Joshua filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Indianapolis for interfering with his employment.

The lawsuit alleges that Robert Bridges, the school’s president, told Payne-Elliott that the school didn’t want to fire him, but felt that they had no choice. If they were to be stripped of their Catholic title, they would have stood to lose more than Brebeuf, which retained its Jesuit backing.

Payne-Elliott has also filed a complaint against the archdiocese with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging discrimination for being gay.

“We hope that this case will put a stop to the targeting of LGBTQ employees and their families,” he said.

Despite Payne-Elliott not teaching anything relating to religion, the Archdiocese of Indianapolis had recently begun insisting that all teachers at Catholic schools in the area adhere to church teachings. And of course, being in a same-sex marriage goes against standard Catholic beliefs.

As such, Archbishop Charles C. Thompson insists the archdiocese is not targeting gay employees…just employees in same-sex marriages.

Meanwhile, Layton Payne-Elliott will continue teaching math at Brebeuf Jesuit.