The Boston Globe and WBUR News reported last week on a sexual orientation discrimination lawsuit filed in Worcester, Massachusetts Superior Court against the Catholic Diocese of Worcester. James Fairbanks and Alain Beret, a same-sex married couple who are real estate developers, were negotiating to purchase an old mansion owned by the diocese, planning to turn it into a hotel. Plaintiffs allege that the diocese cut off negotiations when they realized that the planned hotel might host same-sex marriages. Monsignor Thomas Sullivan says that negotiations broke down because the developers could not secure financing for their first offer, and their second offer was far too low. The developers, however, cite e-mails that were inadvertently forwarded to them in which Sullivan said that he was cutting off negotiations because of the possibility of gay marriages there. Sullivan admits that the Church will not sell properties where masses have been performed for uses the Church deems inappropriate. Massachusetts law bars discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, among others, in the sale of real estate.
The mansion at issue, now know as Oakhurst, was used by the Church beginning in the 1970's as a rehabilitation center for pedophile priests, called the House of Affirmation. However, as reported in 2005 by La Sallette Journey blog, it was closed in a financial scandal in the late 1980's amid claims that the priest who had founded it was actually using it for financial gain and to create a child sex ring.
