Richmond diocese fired employee after learning of his gay ‘marriage.’ Now he’s suing
A man fired from a Catholic assisted-living center for being in a homosexual “marriage” has sued the care center in federal court for discrimination. John Murphy is suing Saint Francis Home in Richmond, alleging he was discriminated against for his sexual orientation, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports, because he was fired from his position as executive director there in April 2015. Murphy claims in the suit that his sexual orientation never came up in the hiring process, which lasted more than a month, and that when it was first raised 13 days after he was offered the job, the facility’s board president shrugged it off. Murphy says when Tina Neal discussed an upcoming fundraiser with him she told him that “staff and spouses were invited to attend and that (he) was welcome to bring his wife,” to which he replied that he’d been “married” to a man for 30 years. “Since this was the first time this issue ever came up, (Murphy) asked Ms. Neal if his same-sex marriage status