A Christian school in Southern California is suing two former teachers who threatened to sue the school for firing them for refusing to prove their faith.
When Godspeak Church bought Little Oaks Elementary in Thousand Oaks in 2009, it required all employees to fill out questionnaires about their faith, how often they went to church and more, NBC reports.
After teachers Lynda Serrano and Mary Ellen Guevara refused to fill out the forms and were not rehired, they threatened to sue.
"The teachers chose not to [fill out the paperwork], and they knew it was a condition of employment," the school's attorney, Rich Kahdeman, said to NBC. Kahdeman said the church exercised its constitutional right to freedom of religion.
But Dawn Coulson, the teachers' lawyer, said because the school was purchased by a church as a “for-profit” entity and not a "non-profit," it can't require such questionaires.
"That would be like the church buying shares in IBM, and IBM saying, 'We can now discriminate, based on religion,'" Coulson said.
Kahdeman is suing the two teachers in federal court.