Florida Lawsuit Tests If Sex Discrimination Regulations Apply to Religious Institutions
Shortly after Christie Leonard moved to Manatee County in 2003, she began volunteering for Gospel Crusade, a Bradenton nonprofit that runs The Family Church and Christian Retreat conference center and produces videos for the Christian Television Network.
Leonard operated cameras for the organization, and quickly decided she wanted to move into audio-visual work as a career. After volunteering for six years, she landed a job as a video producer with Gospel Crusade, and later took on more responsibilities in the organization’s accounting department.
In early 2019, Leonard was fired. And in a lawsuit filed later that year, Leonard alleged that the decision to fire her had nothing to do with her job performance. Instead, she says, she was fired because Gospel Crusade president Phil Derstine believed she and a former employee, a woman who had been fired in 2018, were engaged in an “intimate relationship.”
