Wednesday, October 27, 2021

 



Brooklyn Diocese fires beloved Catholic school music teacher for marrying his husband & during for his rights secured by ny instead art 1 sec 3 etc


Claude Solnik
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Long Island Business News
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Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays

Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012



Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.

By MICHAEL ELSEN-ROONEY
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
OCT 25, 2021 AT 5:54 PM 

The Brooklyn Diocese fired a beloved Queens Catholic school teacher for marrying a man — claiming his same-sex marriage violated a contractual obligation to “exemplify ... Catholic doctrine and morality.”

Matthew LaBanca was booted as music teacher at St. Joseph’s Catholic Academy in Astoria and as music director at Corpus Christi church on Oct. 13 after someone told Diocese officials he’d gotten married to a man in August, LaBanca said in a Youtube video posted over the weekend.

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St. Joseph’s Catholic Academy in Astoria
St. Joseph’s Catholic Academy in Astoria (Google Maps)

“I’m stripped of both of my jobs, all of my employment, my health insurance and, most importantly, the community life that has meant so much to me, not because of my work performance — not in the slightest — but because I’m gay,” he said.

LaBanca, a stage veteran who has appeared in Broadway shows and on TV, said the trouble started when a community member reported his Aug. 1 wedding date to Rowan in “an apparent act of righteousness.”

LaBanca said a “Diocesan committee of high-ranking officials met for almost six weeks to discuss the fate of my employment and to answer the question, ‘Should Matthew be allowed to remain at his jobs?’ ”

“The answer turned out to be no.”

LaBanca pointed the finger directly at Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, the official in charge of the Brooklyn Diocese, which oversees parishes in Brooklyn and Queens.

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio (John Minchillo/AP)

DiMarzio made headlines in 2011 for banning lawmakers who voted in favor of same sex marriage from appearing at churches or schools in the Brooklyn Diocese.

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A Diocese spokesman did not dispute LaBanca’s account of his termination.

In a statement, officials from the school and church said LaBanca was fired because he violated a clause in his contract stipulating that a teacher must “support and exemplify by his/her public conduct Catholic doctrine and morality.”

“Despite changes to New York State law in 2011 legalizing same-sex marriage, Church law is clear,” the statement continued. “In his case, it has been determined that he can no longer fulfill his obligations as a minister of the faith at either the school or the parish.”

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LaBanca told the Daily News the justification makes little sense, given “there are so many people not living up to church teachings who are not being targeted this way.”

He instead described the decision as “a capricious, discriminatory practice against the LGBTQ community. ... Gay people don’t choose to be gay any more than straight people choose to be straight.”

LaBanca’s firing infuriated Danny Dromm, a Queens City Council Member and former teacher who waged his own battles with the city Education Department over LGBTQ rights.

Rowan Meyer, on left, and Matthew LaBanca, on right, on their wedding day. (Courtesy of Meyer)

“I’m just disgusted with them,” Dromm said of the Brooklyn Diocese. “Here we are in 2021, marriage is legal and the church is still discriminating against LGBT folks.”

“It’s extreme right-wing and really doesn’t represent the way the majority of Catholics feel,” Dromm added.

Support for LaBanca poured in after his announcement.

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Collete Martin, the mother of a former student at St. Joseph’s, described LaBanca as “love incarnate. The kindest, most talented, gifted music teacher ever.”

“This teacher was instrumental in bringing joy to a school that was not joyful for my son,” she added. “He has a lot of community support.”

Martin also objected to the secrecy surrounding the termination, which she says was “done under the cover of night.”

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“There was no chance for anyone to advocate for him, to show the Diocese we want this man,” she said.

LaBanca said the principal at St. Joseph’s was his “fiercest advocate” during the termination proceedings, but that the decision was ultimately up to the Diocese.

LaBanca says he was offered a severance package equivalent to three months of salary, but opted not to take it because doing so would have required him to sign a “gag order” that prevented him from speaking out about the details of his firing.

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“I realized no price could be placed on my personal integrity,” he said.

Both state and city anti-discrimination law prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation — but the laws grant wide latitude to religious institutions.

A 2019 lawsuit challenged a Queens Catholic school for telling a Black 9-year-old boy he could not wear his hair in corn rows, arguing the policy violated state and city law banning discrimination against traditionally Black hairstyles — but the suit was dismissed because of a carve-out in the law for religious schools.

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LaBanca acknowledged the Diocese’s decision may well fall within the bounds of the law, but added that “just because something is legal doesn’t make it right.”


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