Flint Dollar was fired last May for planning to marry his longtime partner. (Photo by A1A Photography)

Fired gay Macon band director lands new job in New York

Some good news to report in the case of Flint Dollar, the gay band director who was fired a Catholic prep school in Macon last May because he planned on marrying his partner. But he had to go a long way to get it.

Dollar has taken a job as organist and music director at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Lewiston, a small town in upstate New York a few miles north of Niagara Falls. The church has a welcome message for Dollar on their homepage where they reference his background and long resume and announce an upcoming recital in his honor. They do not mention his husband, who he married last July in Minneapolis.

Mount de Sales Academy fired Dollar and cited his impending marriage at the time as the reason why, even though it was no secret that Dollar was gay and had had a longtime boyfriend. Dollar even notified school administrators of his sexual orientation during his job interviews in 2010.

The school’s handbook had a non-discrimination policy that included sexual orientation, but the contract he signed included a morality clause that the school may have used as grounds for his Dollar’s dismissal.

Three members of the Mount de Sales Academy board of trustees resigned in the wake of the incident, and students and teachers rallied together to get the school to reinstate him but the school refused.

Dollar filed a gender discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) last June. His attorney Charles Cox, cited Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as precedent.

There had been no updates of note in the EEOC claim as of late January of this year, but we’ve reached out to Cox again to see if there’s been any movement since.

psaunders@thegavoice.com | @patricksaunders