Former Employees Sue Indiana Paper for Religious Discrimination
by Allie Martin
September 7, 2006
(AgapePress) - - Two former employees of a major metropolitan newspaper in Indiana are charging in a federal lawsuit that they were demoted and fired for their Christian beliefs.
James Patterson and Lisa Coffey worked for years on the editorial board of The Indianapolis News. They were transferred to the sister paper, The Indianapolis Star, when the News folded. But in a Title VII religious discrimination lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Coffey and Patterson claim that, when the newspaper was bought by the Gannett publishing company, homosexual and pro-homosexual management were installed.
Both Coffey and Patterson had excellent performance reviews for years. But according to Coffey, she was demoted and he was eventually terminated because of their evangelical Christian beliefs. And, although attorneys for the newspaper have offered to settle, she says she and Patterson feel it is important that this case go to court.
"The Indianapolis Star has filed a motion to seal all information regarding the gay lifestyles of Star managers involved in this suit," Coffey notes. "They're calling it a trade secret, and they're filing a motion to seal all that information to preclude us from even bringing this up as part of our testimony, which really is silly, because it's the whole basis of our suit -- that that's the reason why we were forced out of the department."
Most people fail to realize, the former Star employee contends, how the secular media is promoting the de-Christianization of America. "This whole issue is so much bigger than two people or a newspaper," she says. "It's really about media control. It's about the growing monopolization of the press by media giants who are systematically buying up television, radio, Internet, newspaper outlets."
Coffey says there is "just a shrinking handful of those media giants" that are basically in control of all the information that most of the public sees in the news today. She is hopeful that the lawsuit she and Patterson have brought against the Star will not only vindicate the two of them but also help bring this secularist monopolization of the media to light.
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
