Q: Can I be fired for a religious conversion?
I work at a catholic school. When I started working there I was catholic. Through a series of events in my personal life, I am no longer catholic.
My boss does not know this.
If I tell my boss, can they fire me for my religious conversion?
I am still able to teach my class with no problems.
A:
I am probably the wrong person to answer this as I don't have much experience in employment law. Here is what I do know. Businesses are unable to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, age, and gender. If the only reason, your boss would fire you is because of your conversion to another religion, then I don't think that they could, because it would be a per se discrimination.
That being said, Utah is an "at will" employment state. This means that you can quit and they can fire you for any reason or no reason at all. I don't think it would be too hard for them to fire you for a different reason then your conversion. It may be hard to prove that they fired you for not being catholic unless you told them and the next day you were fired.
I hope this helps. I invite my colleagues to chime in on this as well.
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