Court: Job protections do not extend to sexual orientation

Md. Supreme Court delivers 4-3 ruling tied to suit alleging workplace discrimination

The Maryland Supreme Court has ruled that state law grants certain job protections to workers on the basis of their sex and their gender identity, but the law does not extend the same protections to people based on their sexual orientation.

Its 4-3 ruling Monday is the latest development in a federal lawsuit in which a man who works for Baltimore-based Catholic Relief Services alleges the charity broke the law when it cut off his husband’s health care coverage in October 2017. The ruling is meant to provide the federal judiciary with recommendations from the state to draw on as the case moves forward.

Before the humanitarian organization hired the plaintiff as a data analyst in June 2016, according to a statement of facts provided in the 20-page ruling, one of its human resources officials told him it would offer his spouse the benefit. In fact, the organization initially provided the coverage.

But months later, after a higher-level official learned of the agreement, Catholic Relief Services terminated it on the grounds that providing it is contrary to Catholic Church teachings on same-sex marriage.

The employee, who is not identified by his name in the lawsuit, sued in federal court in June 2020, alleging that the decision violated his right to freedom from employment discrimination under two provisions of federal law — Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Pay Act — and two provisions of Maryland state law.

U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake ruled in his favor, saying in her 23-page decision last August that the plaintiff is entitled to job protection under the federal statutes even as an employee of a faith-based organization, as long as the work he does is nonreligious in nature.

She also wrote that interpreting one of the two state statutes “would require guidance from the Supreme Court of Maryland,

given that it would implicate important state public policy issues.”

Two weeks later Catholic Relief Services lawyers made a motion for “reconsideration” of Blake’s ruling under the two state statutes, which they believed were written in language that could be interpreted in more than one way. The plaintiff ’s attorneys agreed, and the case moved to the Maryland Supreme Court, whose seven justices were asked to offer clarification.

Federal law has been explicit in finding that employers may not engage in job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, but Maryland law is less clear. The statutes cited by the plaintiff — the Maryland Fair Employment Practices Act (MFEPA) and the Maryland Equal Pay for Equal Work Act — include language that protects employees based on sex and gender identity, but together fall short of explicitly barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

In referring the case to the Maryland Supreme Court, both parties asked it to clarify what the language in the state law means.

The state’s highest court reviewed the history of the statutes over the past half-century and more, weighing what they could about legislators’ intentions, according to the majority opinion written by Justice Jonathan Biran. Its determination was that legislators have never included “sexual orientation” as part of protecting sex as a category.

“In sum, the prohibition against sex discrimination in MFEPA does not prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation,” Biran wrote.

The ruling also took issue with the plaintiff ’s assertion that if he’s working at a secular job, he is not performing duties that “directly further the core mission (or missions) of [a] religious entity.”

That’s “a question to be determined in federal court, if necessary,” Biran wrote.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown called the state Supreme Court’s decision “a disheartening setback.” His office had filed an amicus brief in support of the plaintiff.

The next step, he said, will be to encourage the Maryland General Assembly to “rectify this setback” during the next legislative session. “Every Marylander, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, deserves respect and protection on the job,” he said. “It’s a promise we must keep.”

Paul Eagle, a CRS spokesman, declined to say what its next steps will be, including whether it is considering an appeal to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia.

“Catholic Relief Services is reviewing the Court’s majority opinion and considering its implications for the case,” he wrote in an email to The Baltimore Sun.

The plaintiff is still employed at Catholic Relief Services.