Simon v. Catholic Diocese of Kansas City–St. Joseph

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit in a Missouri court this week on behalf of the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City–St. Joseph. A former ministry worker who obtained a marriage license in another state with her same-sex partner sued the diocese for terminating her employment once it learned of the union.

“A church is not obligated to employ those who willingly act contrary to the church’s teachings. The Supreme Court affirmed this only two years ago,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley. “If dioceses are forced to employ people who do not follow Church doctrine, the government will have corrupted the Church, which will no longer be able to minister freely in accordance with its faith.”

In July 2013, Colleen Simon began working as director for social ministries for the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City–St. Joseph. The diocese asked Simon to resign in April after an article appeared in the Kansas City Star that described her as married to another woman. The diocese explained to Simon that her same-sex union “contradicts Church laws, discipline, and teaching and the diocesan Policy on Ethics and Integrity in Ministry.”

“It is for a church alone to decide who is and who is not qualified to receive church authority and communicate religious doctrine,” states the ADF brief filed with the Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri at Independence. “The relationship between a church and its ministers reaches to the core of internal church governance: an area into which courts may not intrude. Courts rightly look with suspicion upon the employment lawsuits of former church ministers because such cases are fraught with constitutional hazards.”

“Ms. Simon was not only a ministerial employee, but she was also an at-will employee who could be terminated at any time and for any reason…. It is well established in Missouri law that an at-will employee may be terminated at any time and for any – or no – reason,’” the brief explains.

“The courts have rightly and regularly upheld the freedom of churches to make employment decisions according to the very faith that the church espouses,” added ADF Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot. “To do otherwise would be to undermine the church itself and invite the government into the very realm that the First Amendment says the government cannot tread. This lawsuit is baseless and should be dismissed.”

Jonathan Whitehead, one of nearly 2,500 attorneys allied with Alliance Defending Freedom, is local counsel on behalf of the diocese in the case, Simon v. Finn.