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Some school boards may have added more specific requirements, as is their prerogative, Shaw said.

The constitution and court decisions have upheld the right of Catholic schools to preferentially hire Catholics, Shaw said.

“As a Catholic, you’re not a Catholic for eight hours a day. You’re a Catholic all the time.”

Some teachers told Postmedia they signed the agreements before they came out as LGBTQ or because they needed a job.

High bar

Are Catholic teachers required to avoid birth control and fertility treatments, refrain from acting upon same-sex attraction and get married before becoming pregnant?

The shared Catholicity clause isn’t that specific, and Shaw wouldn’t be, either.

She said it does make recruitment of Catholic teachers a challenge.

“It’s a very high bar, that’s for sure.”

The public school boards’ association says it’s a standard no employee should be required to meet.

“I’ve never heard of any other employers who are allowed to ask the same questions of people and put the same demands on people,” president Hogg said in a Friday interview. “I think if there were, there’d be human rights violations cases left and right.”

Barb Hamilton, a Calgary Catholic school principal currently on leave, filed a human rights complaint against that district last year, alleging discrimination based on her sexual orientation.

Hogg said in her letter to Eggen that relying on employees to fight the issue in tribunals and courts “puts an individual in a terrible and untenable position.”

In a Friday email, Eggen’s spokesman, John Archer, said it is not acceptable to deny or terminate someone’s employment based on their sexuality.

Eggen has directed the ministry of education to study what policies school authorities have in place and how conditions of employment are applied and practised, Archer said. He did not provide a timeline for the review.

jfrench@postmedia.com