Lesbian Coach's Exit From Belmont U. Has Nashville Talking

Lesbian Coach's Exit From Belmont U. Has Nashville Talking

www.nytimes.com

The story has dominated headlines in Nashville, though the facts remain unclear. Students staged protests on campus. Members of the faculty passed a resolution of support for gay faculty and students. Nashville metro council members introduced a bill to rescind an agreement that allowed Belmont to use a city park for a soccer field. The state Baptist convention commended Belmont officials for appearing to take a stand that “respected their Christian mission as well as their heritage.”

(visit the link for the full news article)

Hmm, seems this story is spurring quite the debate.

The facts surrounding appear to be unclear, but the suggestion is that this successful coach was fired after a public admission of her sexual preference.

Now this is where things get a little sticky for me, as I will admit I am not well versed in such issues from a legal standpoint.

If a school advertises itself as a Christian based program, do they have some sort of legal obligation to enforce what they feel is a christian agenda, or belief system? Or is this solely a moral issue, decided by individuals who may either agree, or disagree with what is deemed 'acceptable'?

Is there grounds for legal recourse for this coach?

What are your takes on this ATSers?

www.nytimes.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


I am completely appalled by the passive firing of the coach. However, it is a private college, and ultimately they have the final say in such matters.

Without knowing whether she was fired/dismissed/let go specifically because she was a lesbian, I feel that it would a little foolish of me to comment on discrimination by Belmont...

however, commenting on the baptist church's statement - as much as I recall from Sunday School the delightful tale of how a wrathful god burned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (and the one GOOD person in the city then had drunken sex with both his daughters... yeah, Lot was definitely a good guy...), does it say anywhere in the bible that there's anything wrong with, well, gay women? As much as churches bitching and whining about people's life choices that don't do anyone any harm is generally just annoying, do they even have a religious grounds for whining about lesbians?

If so, I apologise... they have grounds for being intolerant bigots.


EDIT: in answer to the questions raised by the OP, I have no knowledge of the legal freedom of church-oriented institutions to hire and fire as they would, but I know that here in the UK, the Catholic Church got into trouble because they didn't want to host same-sex marriages and yet legally they were obliged not to say no. I would imagine that if we have that sort of legislation, we also have legislation to prevent christian funded institutions from discriminating against employees on the basis of their sexuality, and every motion passed in the UK seems to be about five months behind a similar motion in the US.

Based on a lot of assumptions, then, I'd say that Belmont could find itself in a sticky situation if they fired her on the sole grounds of her sexuality. However, I like to pretend that there was a better reason.