Last week, a California appellate court, in a sharply divided decision, permitted the worship director of a church, who had been fired after discovery of his homosexuality, to proceed with his defamation and invasion of privacy claims against the church, its pastors and board of elders. At issue in the case, Gunn v. Mariners Church, Inc., was the application of the First-Amendment based “ministerial exemption” that shields the choice and dismissal of clergy from judicial review. In announcing the reasons for Gunn’s dismissal to the congregation, defendants not only said that Gunn had engaged in sinful conduct, but also that he had been asked 40 or 50 times if he were gay and that he had lied in denying it. Gunn claimed that his dismissal was motivated by homophobia, not by church doctrine.
The court held that the First Amendment precludes it from investigating whether or not church doctrine condemns homosexuality as a sin. However, the statement that Gunn had been questioned about his homosexuality and lied does not involve religious doctrine, and the pleadings did not show that disclosing this to the church congregation was part of defendants’ ecclesiastical duties.
Judge Sills filed a lengthy and colorful dissent, arguing that this is really a suit about the theology of the Mariners Church. Here is a sample of Judge Sills rhetoric:
“If the church and its elders contradict the complaint and aver that their religious beliefs and doctrine are "homophobic," plaintiff will publicly denounce his former ecclesiastical employers as a bunch of ignorant bible-thumping knuckle-dragging pitchfork toting rednecks, masquerading as a tolerant church. Or, if they take the bait and "admit" that their doctrine is not "homophobic," the plaintiff will be able to rake them over the scriptural coals by forcing them to distance themselves from various texts in Leviticus, or Romans or whatever, and force them to defend the merits of the fine nuances of their theology as he presses the point that, yes, they really are "homophobic." If the latter happens, further proceedings will turn this case into a theological circus that will make the Scopes Trial look like a boring treatise on insurance law.”
