German labor rules have been amended by the Catholic Church to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.
The change was approved on Tuesday, almost a year after 125 Catholic Church personnel publicly identified as gay or lesbian as a protest against discrimination permitted by church doctrine.
Before recently, Catholic Church personnel risked losing their jobs if they came out as same-sex partners or remarried after a divorce.
The German Bishops’ Conference stated that diversity in church organizations is “explicitly, as never before, recognized as an enrichment.”
The German Catholic Women’s Community referred to the change as a “milestone,” while the Central Committee of German Catholics called the action “overdue.”
But canon law expert Thomas Schüller told Germany’s DPA news agency that the judgment was “motivated by the state labor courts,” who have historically had the upper hand in disputes between Church labor law and private living.
We Are Church activist Christian Weisner applauded the change but said that it was “probably partially because of the personnel deficit.”