Posted on 04/11/2012 9:44:41 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd
ROCKWALL — Cathy Samford, a volleyball coach and science teacher, was fired from Heritage Christian Academy for getting pregnant and not being married, the school acknowledged.
"I looked it up and thought, 'They can't do this,'" said Samford, 29.
For almost three years, she coached volleyball at the private school. Samford was named "Coach of the Year" and recently began teaching science.
But when she got pregnant last fall, the school fired her because she was not married.
"We all have different views and interpretations," Samford said. "It's not necessarily the Christian thing to do to throw somebody aside because of those."
"You can't discriminate against someone who's pregnant or has a pregnancy-related medical condition," said Colin Walsh, her attorney. "That is both state and federal law."
But Heritage Christian said this case is not so simple.
"I understand some people that would say 'It's a heartless thing to do,'" said the school's headmaster, Dr. Ron Taylor. "It wasn't easy to do."
Taylor acknowledged that Samford could not get fired for an out-of-wedlock pregnancy in a public school. But HCA is a private, religious campus, and Taylor said the school considers teachers to be ministers, since they're allowed to share their beliefs in the classroom.
"The Supreme Court, as a matter of fact in the last month, has ruled 9-to-0 that a Christian school does have that right, because this is a ministry, so we have the right to have standards of conduct," Taylor added.
Taylor said Samford violated the morals clause in her contract and was not a "Christian role model" to her students.
"How's it going to look to a little fourth grade girl that sees she's pregnant and she's not married?" Taylor asked.
Mediation did not result in a resolution between the two parties. The school said it also refused to settle the case.
Taylor said HCA was contacted by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission regarding the firing.
Samford and Walsh said they're now considering legal action. The fired teacher and expectant mother said she did nothing wrong, and faces financial problems now, including giving birth without insurance.
The “Harper Valley PTA” song comes to mind.....
Another example where someone who doesn’t follow the rules, wants everyone else to break theirs so she doesn’t have to take responsibility.
She had the choice to not have sex while being unmarried and knew she had a chance to get pregnant and lose her job. She loses.
Go find baby daddy to get your hospital bill and pre natel care along with child support. Instead she chooses to do it with a lawsuit so we all pay.
Hey now. Just because Tsgt made an ignorant reply is no reason for you do do the same.
we’ll be paying a lot more when she receives welfare and food stamps.
Why does everyone assume she wasn’t raped. That would mean she truly did nothing wrong.
That's why we have a little thing called "police reports."
She apparently chose not to.
She was raped? Really? I must have missed that in the story.
She would have mentioned it.
She wasn’t raped.
Jeez, just the other day I was walking down the street, minding my own business when I tripped over a f**k.
Had I been a young woman I could have accidentally become pregnant.
(see tagline)
Further, letting her go from employment does not equal "she's going to have to go get an abortion." It means that she broke her contract and set a bad example for the kids, and the school exercised it's 1st amendment right to determine its own composition.
As with other times when stories like this get posted and the predictable cries of feigned horror are vomited up onto the thread, I strongly suspect that what really offends a lot of folks is not that this woman was fired, but that the school would actually have the audacity to enforce moral standards - standards which a lot of even professing Christians find themselves not wanting to have to abide.
The school has a right to their policy for teachers which I’m sure she was aware of. They could have quietly removed her from the teaching position and put her in another job. If I were the administrator and it fell within policy, that’s what I’d have done (along with doing my best to leave the media out of it).
What if she was raped and decided to keep the baby? Should she be punished? Your sense of morality is full of holes and you also know nothing about the circumstances here.
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What if? Really?
OK, I can play that game. What if she was the Virgin Mary???
Sheesh.
And YOU castigate others for knowing “nothing about the circumstances here”?
She should be on her knees giving thanks that this wasn’t a Muslim school.
You didn't watch the video did you? She didn't say it was rape, she said 'she had different standards'.
Hey Deb, I doubt very seriously that she was...that would be in the title of the article if she was dont you think?
what are the odds of finding a female gym teacher that’s actually straight?
BTW, if she doesn't want to keep the baby, there are a ton of place who will pay for all prenatal, birth and post natal care in return for the rights to adopt the child into a two parent home. My niece was fortunate to be so adopted and my sister and BIL paid all expenses.
M/A ping.
And as usual... FReepers are all over the map here with pro and con opinions
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