Christian Charity Fires Gay Caregiver For ‘Damaging Lifestyle’ – Known As Having A Fiancé

A children’s Christian charity in Texas has fired a caregiver after his fiancé came to work to help watch the children.  Its President says, “there is a set of biblical values that we adhere to and live by.”

It was no secret to his employer that Casey Stegall, a child care giver, is gay. But after his fiancé showed up to help at a field trip for the children Casey was hired to care for, he was fired the next day, reportedly for his “lifestyle choices.”

The Children’s Home of Lubbock, in Texas, boasts it “is a community of volunteers, workers and supporters, pouring their efforts together to make life better for children who need to see that caring and love do exist in a world that has often been unfair and unjust.”

But righting that unfairness and unjustness clearly stops at the children and is not extended to its employees, despite its vision statement, “Manifesting Christ through excellence in child care.”

The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reports on Casey’s story, noting that just a “year after being hired and spending week after week caring for the children living at the home, he was dismissed for circumstances revolving around what Lynn Harms, president of the organization, called Stegall’s lifestyle choices.”

“If you want to try to force our culture to meet your expectations, that’s not going to go well,” Harms told the Avalanche-Journal. “I don’t feel like the culture here has to meet an individual’s desire for the world to be different.”

“As a faith-based, church-related outreach providing welfare services, if you will, to children and families, there is a set of biblical values that we adhere to and live by,” Harms said. “When you are implementing life training and so forth — particularly with children — to put a confused message out there is counterproductive.”

In Stegall’s eyes, it was discrimination, but in the eyes of the law, it’s legal.

As a human development and family studies major at Texas Tech, Stegall landed a job caring for children who’d never experienced a positive family atmosphere.

“I got to be a part of their lives and I got to see that change in them from when we first got them, and I got to see them leave a whole new person,” he said, thinking of the children he worked with who have since been adopted.

Then, during a planned day trip out of the Children’s Home in early July, Stegall introduced the group of teenage boys to his fiancé. Days later, Harms asked the caregiver to meet with him on Stegall’s day off.

That’s when Stegall learned he no longer had a job.

“He told me that because of my lifestyle choices, he didn’t feel comfortable with me being on his team anymore,” he said.

Stegall said he had a spotless employment record with the organization and was often praised by his supervisors for the work he did with the kids.

Still, he was fired without an opportunity to defend himself against accusations of public displays of affection with another man, he said. Other employees who have been accused of what Stegall described as more heinous conduct were placed on paid leave until an investigation into the claims was completed.

Stegall was not given that opportunity, he said.

Stegall was aware of the organization’s Christ-centered mission when he applied for the job, but he never expected his relationship status to send him to the unemployment office.

“My fiancé and I are both Christians and we both attend church,” he said. “I read the same Bible you read, I believe in the same God you believe in.”

Stegall has tried to find lawyers to represent him in suing his former employer, but had no luck.

The Children’s Home of Lubbock is financed by the state of Texas, which has no protections for LGBT workers. 

Here’s the video of Casey’s story:

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid84709566001?bckey=AQ~~,AAAAAEPbXeY~,nLZ7GOMqXxVRisGBNgNzUgUrlzCRJ6Ku&bctid=3697467008001

 

Hat tip: Lone Star Q via Think Progress