Another gay teacher reportedly fired from Catholic school over pregnancy

This time, in Michigan:

A former chemistry teacher at a Catholic, all-girls high school in Bloomfield Hills said she was fired before the semester started because of her “non-traditional” pregnancy.

Barbara Webb, 33, of Madison Heights said she’d worked for Marian High School for nine years, also coaching volleyball and softball and serving as student-government moderator. She is gay but said she believes the public, visible nature of a pregnancy led to her firing.

She learned she was pregnant in June, told her employer in July and was fired in mid-August, Webb said. On Aug. 27 she posted on Facebook announcing the firing and encouraging people to “speak out against hate wherever you see it,” according to the post shared more than 1,000 times by Monday.

On Tuesday, Webb told the Free Press that her termination letter didn’t give a reason. But her previous conversation with administrators made clear the concerns had to do with a morality clause allowing for firing over public conduct of “lifestyle or actions directly contradictory to the Catholic faith,” she said.

“That you can’t hide a pregnancy from the public is why I was terminated,” she said.

The school’s president, Sister Lenore Pochelski, confirmed Tuesday that Webb’s employment ended about Aug. 19. But she declined to comment on that or Webb’s work as a teacher, citing the confidentiality of personnel matters.

Webb, who has been with her partner, Kristen Lasecki, 33, for 5 1/2 years, said she wasn’t asked how she got pregnant. She said the pregnancy was “non-traditional,” and that appears to be what mattered to school administrators. She hasn’t decided whether to take legal action, she said.

Webb said the administration gave her a choice between resigning, with health insurance — but no paychecks or other benefits — continuing through the spring semester and not discussing what happened or being fired.

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