A Victorian private school allegedly pressured a teacher to resign for personally disagreeing with the college’s anti-marriage equality stance, because of fears parents would pull their children out if they found out her true beliefs.

Rachel Colvin was an English teacher at Ballarat Christian College from 2008 until February 2019.

Colvin said that in August last year the school informed her she would no longer be offered certain teaching and professional development opportunities, despite her offer to keep silent about her personal support for same sex marriage. She said she was required to attend counselling sessions with the head of teaching and school chaplain.

Colvin has lodged a discrimination case with the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal under the state’s Equal Opportunity Act 2010. The tribunal is yet to list the case for a directions date or hearing. Equality Australia is providing support to Colvin in pursuing the case.

“I loved my job. I am an extremely hard worker and loyal to a fault, and to have it end the way it did was, at first, professionally humiliating,” Colvin said in a statement.

“I see it as a God-given opportunity to stand up for what is right, to represent what God is really about: loving others.”

Guardian Australia understands that Colvin’s statement of claim alleges the school told her in a meeting last year that parents would leave if they found out she was teaching at the college with her pro-marriage equality beliefs.

Colvin, a committed Christian and mother of three, said she’s bringing the case to let LGBT students know that they aren’t “deformed”.

“They were created as they are, in the image of God, and that they are fully loved by God and share equal dignity with all human beings,” she said.

The school updated its constitution last year following the legalising of same sex marriage in 2017.

“God designed the two genders, male and female, for the purpose of joy and procreation within the sole relationship of marriage. So a marriage can only be between a male and a female, and upon this foundation alone should children be conceived and families formed,” the clause says.

Colvin, who grew up in an evangelical Christian family in the US and has served as a missionary, refused to support that statement of faith.

Rachel Colvin has taken legal action against Ballarat Christian College, claiming she was forced to resign for personally disagreeing with the college’s anti-marriage equality stance. Photograph: Equality Australia

The school declined to comment, referring media enquiries to Christian Schools Australia spokesman, Mark Spencer.

“It’s completely come out of the blue for the school,” Spencer told Guardian Australia.

“This is fundamentally a claim around whether Christian and other faith based schools can continue to hold and teach their beliefs around this and other issues of importance to them.”

He said the statement of faith was standard across Christian schools.

Spencer disputed the claim Colvin was capable of teaching the school’s view of marriage.

“Even if you accept that claim … that’s calling upon her to fundamentally lie to the students,” he said.

“Students will see through that. The next question will be ‘what do you think Miss?’ We don’t want teachers to teach something that they don’t believe in.”

Asked what message the saga sends to same sex students at the school Spencer said: “It doesn’t send any message. The school has strong pastoral care policies and cares for all of its students.

“You can still care for people and love them even though you have different beliefs.”

In 2015, the school was vandalised and closed for a day after the principal had urged the school community to oppose marriage equality in an email to parents.

The general secretary of the Victorian Independent Education Union, Debra James, said in statement: “It is not acceptable for a worker to be forced out of employment simply for refusing to support a divisive statement which is at odds with their own beliefs and out of step with values of tolerance and inclusivity.

“Faith-based schools are entitled to affirm their own beliefs, but it is clearly a step too far to require educators to expressly support values or statements that they believe are in conflict with their duty of care towards their students.”

The case comes as the federal government pushes ahead with a controversial religious discrimination bill and as former rugby star Israel Folau takes legal action against Rugby Australia claiming unfair dismissal on religious grounds.

Folau’s multimillion dollar contract was terminated over a social media post in which he paraphrased a Bible passage, saying “drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists and idolaters” would go to hell unless they repented.