Ministerial-exception developments in Chicago

As this story reports, a federal district court refused to dismiss an employment-discrimination lawsuit that was brought by the "director of worship" of a Chicago-area Catholic church.  The claimant was fired after he became engaged to legally marry his same-sex partner.  Notwithstanding the unanimous ruling in Hosanna-Tabor, the court said that "title alone doesn't determine whether a church employee should be defined as a minister" and that "further legal arguments would be needed to determine whether the ministerial exception applies[.]"

Here is the District Court's order.  In my view, some of the news coverage makes it sound as though the court determined that the case could proceed because the claimant is not a minister, the opinion is actually pretty careful to insist that the question is open, because of factual disputes about the claimant's actual duties and role.  And, the court also goes out of its way to reject some of the claimant's more extravagant claims, such as the allegation that “the Catholic Church has deprived [him] of his constitutional fundamental right to marry[.]"

Stay tuned. . . .