Can You Be Fired for Having Sex? Women Face Pregnancy Discrimination at Work
That question is at the heart of a recent case featuring an evangelical CEO, an employee code of conduct demanding “righteous living” of its employees, and a woman who just wants her job back.
It's the latest incident to revive a debate over religious views in the workplace and their effect on women.
You're Fired!
Administrative assistant Caitlin O’Connor got a surprise last June when she was fired from her company, Ramsey Solutions, after announcing she was pregnant. HR cited the fact that she wasn’t married to the father of her unborn child (the couple were longtime partners but hadn't tied the knot). O'Connor filed a lawsuit arguing she was wrongfully terminated.
Dave Ramsey, the company's CEO and well-known personal finance guru, insists that he has the right to fire employees who don't behave in accordance with certain evangelic values – both at work and in their personal lives. And he stands by his decision to show unmarried pregnant women the door.
The law is not so clear. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act, an amendment to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, makes it illegal to discriminate on the basis of pregnancy or childbirth.
But Ramsey’s lawyers relied on a technicality: they argued that O’Connor wasn’t fired for getting pregnant, she was fired for having premarital sex.
Nor was she an outlier – court filings revealed that twelve other women have been fired by Ramsey Solutions for premarital sex in recent years.
Beware the Baby Bump
Cases like these are more common than you might think.
In 20 a woman named Teri James sued a Christian school after she was similarly fired for premarital sex (again, her employer found out when she became pregnant).
Back in 20, a Catholic school district in Cincinnati fired Christa Dias for getting pregnant (while unmarried) via artificial insemination.
Even Senator Elizabeth Warren says she was fired early in her career for visible pregnancy. She recounted an experience early in her teaching career in a 2019 tweet:
Do Religious Rules Discriminate Against Women?
Many critics point out that bans on extramarital sex are clearly slanted against women. Why? Because they're the ones getting pregnant.
"It is certainly going to be more obvious because of pregnancy,” stated Vanderbilt University law professor Jennifer Bennett Shinall. “It is going to be more obvious if a woman is engaging in premarital sex than men.” She pondered if companies scrutinize the sex lives of their male employees as much as their female ones.
It’s a tough egg to crack for the courts. Discriminating against pregnant women is illegal, but being an individual who has premarital sex is not a protected class.
Companies and organizations that require employees to abide by such religious values are betting on the fact that the courts will side with their reasoning that the women were fired for the sex, not the pregnancy. After all… the sex did technically come first.
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Aaaahhh No he does NOT have that "right" but I would sue him not for my job back but lost wages instead.... Let the POS pay two people for that job and my heath care as well as other expenses as well....
Churches and religious organizations can get away with it but a publicly run business doesn't have religious immunity...
Lizard_of_Ahaz
Level 9
Apr 17, 2021
1
I do not agree with this BUT, if you work for a religious institution they have the right to say go away if you break their religious rules. She should have said I went to confession and the priest told me to pray daily, then you lie, and say that's what I have done. Then if the church wanted to still fire her she could still sue and make them look malicious. BECAUSE THEY ARE!
I had a few friends who stole the guts of a Hammond B-1 organ out of our local RC Church. (I saw it with my own eyes. When it became apparent that they would indeed be caught, they went to confession, and pennance was return it and say 3 hail mary's. No charges were filed. That was maybe 1972.
For a while Catholics did not believe in various forms of conception outside of "straight sex". That is, man on top girl on bottom, get it over with quick. The concept of sealed confessions was strict. so confessing to the priest was shear genius, but an old ploy.
praytothemilkjug
Level 6
Apr 17, 2021
1
It should be noted that Ramsey Solutions isn't a religious institution. They have no right to dictate how employees conduct their personal life away from the workplace. Religious institutions do have certain exceptions to discrimination rules, but (imo) the religious institution should not be allowed to dominate any industry in order to sidestep antidiscrimination laws.
There is nothing so christian as to fire an unwed mother so that she won't be able to take care of her unborn child.
You would think this would be a moment of compassion and caring and tell the mom It's okay if you made a mistake we will show you love and your unborn baby love anyway.
abyers1970
Level 7
Apr 15, 2021
5
Yes! Wouldn't a pregnant woman without a job be more likely to consider an abortion? Of course, the conservative Christian response would be to eliminate that option as well, so unwed mothers have no way to support and care for the child they would force them to have.
@RussRAB Save the fetus, ignore the child, especially minority or destitute.
The reasoning behind some of these corporate policies is simply fear and greed. The Old Testament is full of stories of God punishing those who disbelieve by causing them some kind of catastrophe (never mind Job). The Jews begin worshipping some other Gods so the Jewish God punishes them by allowing one of their neighboring kingdoms to conquor them until they learn their lesson. Without specifically knowing whether it was true, I would say that Chick-Fil-A attributes its success as a company in part to being closed on Sundays. Obviously, other religious practices would also come into play as well, this one is just more obvious to everyone. Along the same line, Dave Ramsey also likely believes his success is due in part to his adherence to this strict moral code imposed on all his staff. On a wider scale, it is also the reason evangelicals fear for our nation. They would believe that as Americans lose faith in Christianity, our nation loses God's protection (never mind that 9/11 occurred while believing George W Bush was president). It's also the reason that Ted Cruz ( who has been described as a Christian dominionist) believes he would solve America's problems, and likely the lip service trump paid to some Christian belief is why evangelicals were fooled into supporting trump.
RussRAB
Level 8
Apr 15, 2021
2
Sad.
The US is now a nanny state. What’s next? Men getting fired for committing some “impure act” such as masturbation? Would not surprise me.
CuddyCruiser
Level 8
Apr 14, 2021
3
Not a nanny state, a religious dictatorship.
If the case gets to SCOTUS, it will let the Court reverse and throw away their poorly-reasoned ‘“sincerely-held religious belief” precedent.
yvilletom
Level 8
Apr 14, 2021
1
Hopefully
Don't hold your breath.
It may also give the court an opportunity to reinforce that poorly-reasoned precedent.
We could bring Mary into the picture but Catholics fixed that by claiming she was married to God.
DenoPenno
Level 9
Apr 14, 2021
4
Isn't immaculate conception supposed to mean Mary became pregnant without having sex? It was supposedly a virgin birth after all.
Mormon story telling about Jesus' conception doesn't rule out some kind of sexual contact between God the father and Mary. Like Catholics, they conclude that Mary and God were married. They go on to claim the reason it was still a virgin birth is that God is not a human man so even though Mary had sex of some sort to conceive, she was still a virgin. Oh, the pretzels we have to tie ourselves into to make sense of the senseless.
So, considering that Mary was both 'married' to Sky Daddy and to Joseph does that not make both Sky Daddy, Mary and Joseph Bigamists then?
OR, were they just an early Hebrew form of Menage et trois perhaps....LOL.
@Triphid NAW just, Sky God and her had an open relationship. So once he knocked her up, she was free to sexulate with anyone her father wanted to sell her to. If it is not a "sale", then why have a dowry.
@Triphid - Drawing again from what I eventually learned about early Moronism, founder Joseph Smith was married to some 30+ women and about a third of them were concurrently married to other men. Some former Morons believe this practice was to perhaps hide the fact of these polygamous marriages by being able to explain any children conceived - it wasn't Smith because she was married to another man. The way they justified these polyandrous marriages was that a tradition marriage was until death, but the Moron celestial marriages were for all time. What I recall reading was that while some of Smith's polyandrous marriages were to women married to their first husbands for some time before Smith married them as well, other women were married to Smith for all time and to another man at the same time until death only. Of course, this arrangement didn't mean Smith had to wait to bed these women until her other husband died. I imagine both he and the other man they were married to could have marital sex with woman without being considered torrid - at least not amoung most of their Moron community.
First question: How many men have they fired for having sex out of wedlock?
Second question: How many of the people they have fired have not been pregnant or had a pregnant partner?
I am guessing 0 and 0 sooo yep its sexist.
Third question: How long until we hear about Mr. Ramsey's torrid affair? Any bets in the preferred partner?
Donna_I
Level 8
Apr 14, 2021
7
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