ECFA recently joined a court brief defending the right of ministries to have employees who are aligned with them on matters of faith. Our filing — made in partnership with twenty other church and ministry organizations — argues this point from a straightforward reading of civil rights law.

Spurring this renewed debate is a lawsuit against a Catholic high school in Charlotte, North Carolina. Lonnie Billard, who taught English and drama at Charlotte Catholic for more than a decade, knew that the school required its teachers to uphold its core religious values. However, when the school declined to employ him as a substitute teacher after he announced a same-sex relationship on social media in 2014, Billard and the ACLU accused the school and its diocese of sex discrimination prohibited by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Following a poor ruling in a federal district court, this case is now before the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is defending Charlotte Catholic, believes the teacher’s claim in this case “is barred by multiple statutory and constitutional protections for religious freedom.” Becket is not only countering on the grounds of Title VII, but also the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

While recognizing the importance of constitutional and RFRA arguments, the brief filed by ECFA and other Christian ministries with the Fourth Circuit on September 29 zeroes in on the district’s court incorrect understanding of Title VII. We argued that the appellate judges can “start and end with the statute and its religious exemption, a straightforward reading of which requires reversal.”

“The district court’s approach sets up an untenable distinction between ‘religious discrimination’ and ‘sex discrimination,’” the brief reads. “Yet, in many situations like the present case, these are just two sides of the same coin. What appears from one vantage point to be religious discrimination is, from another, sex discrimination.”

Essentially, we argue from the text of Title VII and relevant case law that when ministries make employment decisions based on religious beliefs, observance, or practice, that fact overrules other provisions in that section of the law — including its sex discrimination prohibition. This isn’t a blanket exemption in all matters for religious organizations, but it does do what was intended by Congress. It preserves the ability of faith-based organizations to employ individuals rightly aligned with the religious identity that makes them who they are.

ECFA will continue to monitor developments in this case and others critical to our members’ religious liberty.