Catholic school teachers in the Ohio Archdiocese Cincinnati are being required to sign strict work contracts that could see them fired for any diversion from the Catholic Church’s moral code – including publicly supporting gay rights or even being in a non-married opposite-sex relationship.

Under the 2014-2015 contract for teachers in the 94 schools supervised by the Archdiocese of Cincinnati employees will be banned from ‘from any conduct or lifestyle which would reflect discredit on or cause scandal to the school or be in contradiction to Catholic doctrine or morals.’

This includes ‘improper use of social media/communication, public support of or publicly living together outside of marriage; public support of or sexual activity out of wedlock; public support of/or homosexual lifestyle; public support of/or use of abortion; public support of/or use of a surrogate mother; public support or use of in-vitro fertilization or artificial insemination.’

A spokesperson for the archdiocese defended the contracts – saying they aided teachers in understanding the church’s expectations of them.

‘There aren’t any new expectations of our teachers in the 2014-2015 contract. The revised wording is just more explicit in that it lists examples of behaviors that are unacceptable as contrary to church teaching,’ Cincinnati Archdiocese spokesperson Dan Andriacco told Cincinnati.com.

‘We think that’s fairer to the teachers and a help to them.

‘We’ve always regarded our schools as a ministry. That’s why we open the doors in the morning. Not all of our students are Catholic and not all of our teachers are Catholic, but all of our schools are Catholic.

‘We regard all of our teachers – not just religion teachers – as ministerial employees, even if they are not Catholic. Our contract for many years has reflected that by including a moral conduct clause. Last year we made that clause more explicit by mentioning the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and this year we’ve added examples of unacceptable behaviors.’

This is not the first time the Catholic Church in Cincinnati has acted to police its teachers’ freedom of speech and private lives.

The Archdiocese of Cincinnati made headlines at the beginning of last year after it fired Purcell Marian High Scholl assistant principal Mike Moroski for posting about his support for same-sex marriage on a personal blog.