Thursday, March 27, 2008

Federal Court Tosses Religious Discrimination Suit Against Star

U.S. District Court Judge Larry McKinney tossed a lawsuit brought by two former Star editorial writers, Lisa Coffey and James Patterson, in which the two claimed a homosexual cabal at the Gannett-owned newspaper drove them from their jobs because of their fundamentalist Christian beliefs. McKinney concluded the newspaper really did have a legitimate basis for declining to run a series of graphic columns about the dangers of anal sex by Coffey, who had a tendency to proselytize her religious views in the workplace, and that Patterson really was a problem employee with just too many errors in his work. Former Star columnist and fellow blogger Ruth Holladay has more here. Hat tip to Indiana Law Blog.

4 comments:

Indy4U2C said...

The suit brought to light the fact that Ryerson does not belong in Indianapolis...he is truly a left-coast liberal, out-of-touch with our community!

As much as I hate to admit it, Patterson was incompetent. I don't know why he got hired by The Star, and hated to read his incompetent (often offensive) remarks.

Patterson, you are incompetent.

Ryerson, you were not meant for Indianapolis. I think you would best be at home in San Francisco!

Unknown said...

Trying to get a discrimination suit by the Southern District is like trying to get a piece of raw meat by a lion. They probably dismiss 90% of them based on a bogus application of the summary judgment standard. Whatever happened to construing the evidence against the non-moving party in a summary judgment? I don't know if they had a case, but dismissal on summary judgment should be the exception of discrimination cases, not the norm.

David Myers said...

Don't worry, the Star as I see it will print only what they want you to read.

Unknown said...

FYI, I meant "moving party" not the "nonmoving party."