In Barr v. Tucker (SD GA, Feb. 21, 2023), a Georgia federal district court denied a preliminary injunction to plaintiff whose position as a substitute elementary school teacher was terminated after she complained to her own children's teachers and to the principal about the school librarian's reading aloud to classes a book that contains illustrations of same-sex couples with school-age children. The court explained:
Plaintiff told Defendant Tucker [the school principal] that she believed the book was '"inappropriate for young children, conflicted with her Christian faith, and appeared to bean effort to indoctrinate young children into a progressive ideological agenda[]" and asked that her children be excused from the read-aloud program.
Plaintiff contended that the school had retaliated against her for her exercising her free speech and free exercise rights. The court disagreed, saying in part:
... Plaintiff's inquiries principally addressed her personal concerns about exempting her children from the read-aloud program, and the context of her speech suggests she spoke on a matter of private or personal interest.
Accordingly ... Plaintiff has failed to establish a substantial likelihood of success in showing she spoke on a matter of public concern .... As a result. Plaintiff has also failed to establish a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of her First Amendment [free speech] retaliation claim....
The Court accepts, as Plaintiff alleges, that her sincerely held religious beliefs include ''that God created marriage to be between one man and one woman, and that family formation should occur within the confines of heterosexual marriage."... However, at this stage. Plaintiff has not established that she is substantially likely to succeed on showing that Defendants substantially burdened her religious beliefs by terminating her.
It is not clear that Defendants called for Plaintiff's removal due to her religious beliefs....
Defendants maintain they removed Plaintiff due to her inappropriately timed interactions with her children's teachers and concern about how she would support students or parents that identify as gay, not because of her beliefs about marriage and family formation.
