School didn’t violate law in firing gay teacher, court rules

The courts must stay out of Charlotte Catholic High School’s decision to fire a beloved theater teacher for being gay and posting about his engagement on Facebook, according to a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling Wednesday.

In the latest round of a high-stakes church and state legal fight, a panel of three judges reversed U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn’s 2021 decision that the school violated a federal ban on sex discrimination in the workplace when it fired Lonnie Billard.

Billard was a beloved CCHS theater and English teacher for 10 years before he retired in 2014. He’d won the 2011 Inspirational Educator Award from North Carolina State University and the 2012 Charlotte Catholic Teacher of the Year award. Even in retirement, he still made appearances as a substitute teacher.

On Oct. 25, 2014, two weeks after the federal courts struck down North Carolina’s ban on same-sex marriage, he shared plans to marry his longtime partner:

“Yes, I’m finally going to make an honest (at least legal) man out of Rich (Donham),” he wrote on Facebook. “I thank all the courageous people who had more guts than I who refused to back down and accept anything but ‘equal.’”

Two months later, on Christmas Day, Billard learned he’d been fired.

“When Mr. Billard knowingly violated Church teaching, that put him in a position where he wasn’t effectively able to pass on the Catholic faith to the next generation,”