Federal judge affirms firing of Indiana teacher who refused students’ preferred pronouns

by Seth Udinski

Seth Udinski, FISM News

On Friday, a federal judge agreed with a lower court ruling affirming that an Indiana school district possessed the right to ignore the religious beliefs of a teacher who refused to refer to students by their pronoun of choice.

Back in 2017, Indiana high school music teacher John Kluge filed a lawsuit against his local school district for forcing teachers to refer to students by their preferred gender pronouns.

Early reports, according to Fox News, indicated that the school allowed Kluge to instead refer to these specific students by their last name.

Kluge said in 2018, when he resigned from his position, that the school walked back its initial allowance and demanded he refer to students by their pronouns, or else be terminated from his position.

On Friday, the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the initial legal ruling, denying that Kluge’s religious rights were violated. The ruling states,

Brownsburg has demonstrated as a matter of law that the requested accommodation worked an undue burden on the school’s educational mission by harming transgender students and negatively impacting the learning environment for transgender students, for other students in Kluge’s classes and in the school generally, and for faculty.

In contrast, Kluge’s legal counsel Rory Gray, a senior attorney at Alliance Defending Freedom, said,

The 7th Circuit’s ruling shows why the Supreme Court needs to fix the standard for accommodating religious employees under Title VI … Congress passed Title VII to prevent employers from forcing workers to abandon their beliefs to keep their jobs. In this case, Mr. Kluge went out of his way to accommodate his students and treat them all with respect. The school district even permitted this accommodation before unlawfully punishing Mr. Kluge for his religious beliefs. We are evaluating next steps in this case.

Author’s Biblical Analysis

It is timely that, on the day Christians remembered the crucifixion of our Lord, who also was unjustly punished, we see more unjust punishment targeted against Christians.

If this report angers you, you are not wrong to be frustrated. What has happened to this teacher appears to be a direct violation not only of plain reason, but a clear violation of his religious beliefs.

But Believer, please do not be surprised when you see and experience injustice and personal attacks because of your Christian faith. You will be persecuted, and it is because of your faith in Christ that this will happen.

I never want to downplay or trivialize the hardship that believers face because of our fealty to Christ. It is painful, and it should cause us to be discontent with the evil in the world.

But let us never be shocked when we are mistreated because of Christ. Instead, let us be encouraged, because this mistreatment is simply proof of our union with Christ.

Believer, take heart. Because you belong to Christ, your eternal salvation is secure. Because you belong to Christ, your sins have been paid in full. Because you belong to Christ, this broken world is not as good as it gets. You have a home and an eternal inheritance waiting for you.

Be courageous. You belong to Christ.

If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.  – John 15:20

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