Gay softball coach at Catholic school says she was forced to resign for plans to marry girlfriend

What happened?

A softball coach at a Michigan high school has resigned after a series of “unpleasant” conversations about her relationship with her girlfriend. A parent’s concern about the coach’s example instigated meetings between her and Catholic leaders about the relationship.

Give me the details:

Kristen Nelson said in a Facebook post that school administrators at West Catholic High School and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Grand Rapids made it clear that if she acted on her plans to marry her girlfriend, she could no longer coach at the school.

“I hope you can understand that I simply cannot continue to work in an environment that refuses to support me,” Nelson wrote. She had been the softball coach at West Catholic for five years.

What did the school say?

Nelson’s status as a gay person was not the problem – it was her decision to act on same-sex attraction and plan to marry a woman.

“The public act of same-sex marriage, not her same-sex attraction, is the issue,” West Catholic said in a statement. “It is not only people who experience same-sex attraction who are called on to live chastely, but all of us.”

Breaking: Catholic schools have Catholic standards.

On today’s show, Doc and Kari talked about religious standards and why private schools have a right to hold their employees to certain guidelines dictated by their faith.

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