Gay Counselor, Catholic School Spar Over What Makes a ‘Minister’

A gay guidance director fired by a Catholic high school over her same-sex marriage will try to convince the Seventh Circuit on Friday that it risks setting a harmful precedent if it doesn’t reverse a ruling that she was a “minister.”

Millions of workers risk losing their protections against job bias if employers can use a contract to make an employee a minister, Michelle Fitzgerald says. That’s essentially what Roncalli High School Inc. did to her and it could happen to janitors, nurses, and other workers like her who perform predominantly secular duties, she says.

Roncalli and the Archdiocese of ...