Glendora, Ca. – It was a picture of one of life’s happiest moments that Catholic high school teacher Ken Bencomo said cost him his job.
The veteran English instructor married his longtime beau five days after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for gay marriages to resume in California. Coverage of the happy couple in the local newspaper, however, appears not to have sat well with the all-girls Catholic school in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendora where he taught for 17 years.
“They told him because of the marriage and that it was publicized and it was against church teachings they had to fire him,” Bencomo’s lawyer, Patrick McGarrigle, said on Aug. 5.
St. Lucy’s Priory High School, located about 20 miles northeast of Los Angeles, declined to comment on the case but said the school provides an education based on Catholic tradition.
“While the school does not discriminate against teachers or other school employees based on their private lifestyle choices, public displays of behavior that are directly contrary to church teachings are inconsistent with these values,” St. Lucy’s said in a statement.
The firing has stoked an outpouring of support for Bencomo, 45, and Christopher Persky, 32, who were among the first gay couples to line up at the San Bernardino County Assessor-Recorder’s Office to get married after the Supreme Court’s decision.
The court ruled that the sponsors of voter-approved Proposition 8 lacked authority to appeal a federal trial judge’s decision that the ban on same-sex marriage violated the constitutional rights of gay and lesbian Californians.
Some of Bencomo’s former students are planning a peaceful protest for next week. A petition circulating online in support of Bencomo, who headed the school’s English department and served as a yearbook adviser and dance coach, had more than 12,000 signatures on Friday.
The clash between teachers’ lifestyles and the tenets of Catholic schools is hardly new. Earlier this year, a lesbian teacher said she was fired by an Ohio Catholic school after her mother’s published obituary included the name of her partner. And another Ohio Catholic school teacher sued and won after she was fired for becoming pregnant through artificial insemination.
Under federal law, church-based schools can make hiring decisions for religious reasons, said David Ball, co-chair of the American Bar Association’s religious organizations subcommittee. But courts are still grappling with which kinds of instances are covered by this exemption to anti-discrimination laws.
“This is his private life, out of work so that’s the gray area,” Ball said. “When can religious employers say they have religious reasons for firing somebody when it’s got nothing to do with their job performance? (when) it’s their identity, not their actions?”
Bencomo, who in the past attended school fundraisers and events with his partner, hasn’t filed a lawsuit, saying he would rather settle the matter without one. Bencomo could not be immediately reached.
Earlier this week, Pope Francis made headlines when saying “who am I to judge?” when it comes to the sexual orientations of priests, so long as they are searching for God and have good will. While Francis hasn’t changed anything about Catholic teaching, experts say his remarks constitute a significant change in tone.
Frederick Parrella, a professor of religious studies at Santa Clara University, said it isn’t uncommon to see different Catholic dioceses display different attitudes toward gay marriage.
“The primary principle is they don’t like things made public and the fact that this was probably public, and made the papers and a big splash is what happened,” Parrella said. “Had this gentleman gotten married in a private civil ceremony, there would be no problem I’m sure.”
