{"id":19972,"date":"2021-07-16T16:56:22","date_gmt":"2021-07-16T23:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/?p=19972"},"modified":"2021-07-16T15:41:34","modified_gmt":"2021-07-16T22:41:34","slug":"judge-rejects-religious-freedom-argument-rules-school-was-justified-in-forcing-out-christian-teacher-who-refused-to-use-students-transgender-pronouns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/judge-rejects-religious-freedom-argument-rules-school-was-justified-in-forcing-out-christian-teacher-who-refused-to-use-students-transgender-pronouns\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge rejects religious freedom argument, rules school was justified in forcing out Christian teacher who refused to use students’ transgender pronouns"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Phil Shiver<\/a> – July 15, 2021<\/p>\n

A federal judge in Indianapolis this week rejected an argument based on a Christian teacher’s religious liberty rights by ruling that a school was justified in forcing him to comply with the school’s transgender-affirming agenda or else resign.<\/p>\n

Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana sided against 30-year-old John Kluge, a former orchestra teacher who claimed that in 2018 he was discriminated against by being forced to resign<\/a> for refusing to refer to students by their preferred gender pronouns.<\/p>\n

In a ruling<\/a> issued on Monday, Magnus-Stinson concluded that Brownsburg Community School Corporation could not accommodate Kluge’s “religious beliefs without sustaining undue hardship,” and so it was justified in overriding his constitutional freedoms.<\/p>\n

In support of her decision, the judge argued that Kluge’s “religious opposition to transgenderism is directly at odds with [the district’s] policy of respect for transgender students, which is grounded in supporting and affirming those students.”<\/p>\n

She added that a public school “has an obligation to meet the needs of all of its students, not just a majority of students or the students that were unaware of or unbothered by Mr. Kluge’s practice of using last names only.”<\/p>\n

Kluge taught orchestra at the school from 2014 to 2018, when he resigned over the transgender-affirming policies, WISH-TV reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to court filings, the controversy began at the end of the 2016-2017 school year, when faculty at the school heard a presentation on “what it means to be transgender and how teachers can encourage and support transgender students.”<\/p>\n

Soon after, the school adopted policies to promote transgenderism, one of which was the requirement that faculty and staff refer to transgender students by their preferred pronouns.<\/p>\n

But Kluge indicated to school administrators that due to his religious beliefs he would not be able to comply with the new policy.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.theblaze.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Phil Shiver – July 15, 2021 A federal judge in Indianapolis this week rejected an argument based on a Christian teacher’s religious liberty rights by ruling that a school was justified in forcing him to comply with the school’s transgender-affirming agenda or else resign. Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson of the U.S. District Court for the Southern … Continue reading Judge rejects religious freedom argument, rules school was justified in forcing out Christian teacher who refused to use students’ transgender pronouns<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[16],"tags":[175,177,125,15988,15986,15987,13041,234,1534,57],"class_list":["post-19972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-white-horse","tag-christianity","tag-christians","tag-church","tag-gender-pronouns","tag-indianapolis","tag-jane-magnus-stinson","tag-john-kluge","tag-lgbt","tag-religious-liberty","tag-transgender"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8fAkI-5c8","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19972"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19974,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19972\/revisions\/19974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}