A Grand Rapids parish is suing the state because it contends it cannot operate consistent with its Catholic beliefs since the Michigan Supreme Court interpreted civil rights law to include protections for LGBTQ people.
The state has forced Sacred Heart of Jesus and its school, Sacred Heart Academy, to make an “unconstitutional and unconscionable choice” to either cease teaching and practicing the Catholic faith or “close its doors forever,” read the 227-page complaint filed Thursday, Dec. 22, in U.S. District Court.
Sacred Heart would have to hire faculty and staff who oppose the faith, speak messages that violate doctrine and refrain from articulating beliefs in teaching and advertising to prospective students or job applicants, it contends. “Rather than defy Catholic doctrine in these ways, Sacred Heart would shut down.”
The lawsuit alleges alleges the recent reinterpretation of the Michigan Elliot Larsen Civil Rights Act violates the First Amendment rights of both Sacred Heart and several parents with enrolled students. They have rights to raise their children in accordance with the Catholic faith, it argues.
Catholic doctrine states human sexuality is a “unitive and procreative gift reflecting the nature of God and that sexual acts are exclusively reserved for the loving and permanent bond of marriage, which can only exist between one man and one woman,” it says and makes clear the school would not affirm genders alternate to biological sex.
“Sacred Heart cannot embrace transgender ideology because that ideology does not reflect the truth and is inconsistent with Catholic doctrine and the Church’s vision for human flourishing.”
The lawsuit names Attorney General Dana Nessel and John E. Johnson Jr., executive director of the Michigan Department of Civil Rights and members of the state civil rights commission. Messages left Friday with both offices were not immediately returned.
“Sacred Heart parish has faithfully served Grand Rapids families for more than a century, and its school provides a rich academic and spiritual environment for hundreds of children.
“The government should respect their constitutionally protected freedom to follow the very faith that has motivated them to serve their community,” Ryan Tucker, director of the Alliance Defending Freedom’s Center for Christian Ministries, said in a statement.
The Alliance, a national nonprofit legal organization, is representing the parish and three school families, with 14 total students, in the lawsuit. It also earlier brought a suit on behalf of Christian Healthcare Centers of the Grand Rapids area. It is a faith-based nonprofit similarly opposed to the sex provision in the civil rights act.
Earlier in December, a Catholic Church north of Lansing, along with the Diocese of Lansing, sued the state on similar grounds.
In July, the Michigan Supreme Court, considering a case involving two businesses denying service to LGBTQ people based on religious beliefs, decided sexual orientation is protected under the act, which prohibits discrimination in public accommodation, public service and education based on sex, race, age, religion and other bases.
The law applies to church-run schools, contends the lawsuit, and Michigan’s education discrimination prohibition explicitly covers private institutions.
Sacred Heart’s policies and practices violate the interpretation of the act, the lawsuit states, as it operates a school serving nearly 400 children pre-kindergarten to 12th grade on Dayton Street in southwest Grand Rapids.
The academy, which employees 48 people, would not in employment, education or any services provided to the public allow pronouns, bathroom use or gender-specific sports participation inconsistent with biological sex. These practices are ‘incompatible with living according to the Catholic faith and its doctrine.”
“Sacred Heart’s teaching methods reflect Catholic doctrine that mankind is created in two distinct but complementary sexes, male and female.” It incorporates this belief into its academy operation. High school students, for example, are divided into single-sex households or houses.
The school requires parents and students to sign an agreement indicating they will live virtuously according to this doctrine. It will admit and retain students who experience “same sex attraction, gender confusion or gender dysphoria,” provided these students and their families desire a “Catholic formation and education.”
It will not admit or retain students who adopt sexual identities in conflict with the faith.
Further, Sacred Heart only recruits, hires and retains employees who “support, live and model” the faith and its doctrine. Its employees are to publicly swear annually “an oath of fidelity” to the doctrine, including on marriage and sexuality.
The civil rights act, it says, makes this illegal, and would hinder the school’s ability to promote and model the faith to students, families and the community.
Sacred Heart fears “aggressive government enforcement” because Nessel has made public comments “hostile to the Catholic faith.” “And because the school’s faith-based approach to education makes it a target for those who disagree with its religious worldview.”
It would have to refuse staff or student requests for special treatment violating its faith and doing so risks complaints and subsequent state investigations. “For example, a student experiencing gender discordance recently left Sacred Heart because that student no longer wished to abide by the school’s Catholic requirements and formation.”
In August, Christian Healthcare Centers filed a lawsuit, also against Nessel and state civil rights leaders, arguing the law now “poses an imminent threat” to its constitutional right to operate as a religious ministry.
The centers would be required to hire people of any faith and provide medical treatments that don’t align with their belief in the “immutability of biological sex,” they contend.
“Simply put, there is no immediate danger of harm, and plaintiff’s concerns are based solely on conjecture,” the defendants wrote in a responding briefs.
At this time, the complaint only contains “abstract allegations” that might occur differently than anticipated or not at all, the document states.
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