Say What Now? Denver Catholic Teacher Fired for Same-Sex Relationship

“I think it’s important to kind of get this narrative out there because I know that choosing to work in a Catholic school as a lesbian, as someone within the queer community, might not make sense to everybody,” Barton said. “The reason why I did that is because of my faith. To feel my own faith being weaponized against me in this way, to be terminated and to lose this position is, it’s heartbreaking.”

Barton was a technology teacher and media specialist at the K-8 school for six years.

She said when the Archdiocese discovered a photo of her and her partner, she was informed that she would be getting a call from the Archdiocese. When she got the call from an official, Barton admitted to being in a same sex-relationship.

“He was asking me a lot of questions about my understanding of the Catholic faith and if I was aware of the church’s position on same-sex attraction and all that kind of stuff,” Barton said. “It was a very uncomfortable conversation. That was the only correspondence that I had with the Archdiocese directly.”

The next day, All Souls officials informed her that she was terminated.

The Archdiocese released a statement Friday saying that Barton did not honor her commitments agreed to in her contract with the school.

“Every Catholic school teacher in the Archdiocese of Denver, as a minister of the Church, signs a contract at the outset of each school year and in that agreement they pledge to “personally [exemplify] the characteristics of Catholic living, which includes, ‘refraining from taking any public position or conducting him or herself in a manner that is contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church,’ the Archdiocese wrote.