A preschool teacher has filed a federal lawsuit against First Baptist Church of Dallas, claiming that her bosses discriminated against her after she became pregnant out of wedlock.
Freda Brown alleges that leaders of the 138-year-old downtown church asked her inappropriate questions, reduced her wages and forced her to sign a statement that she would stop having sex until marriage.
According to the lawsuit filed this week, Ms. Brown was hired by First Baptist as a full-time preschool teacher in 2001. In the spring of 2005, she became pregnant with her first child but was not married.
When the church found out in May 2005, staff members invited her to a meeting and told her that premarital sex was wrong, she said in the lawsuit. She alleged that she was asked several questions about her sex life that were “personal, inappropriate and unrelated to her job performance.”
According to court documents, the questions included, “Were you a virgin when you had sex with the child’s father?” and “Why can’t you just get married to the child’s father?”
Ms. Brown alleges that at another meeting, also in May 2005, the human resources director told her that “she was not living a Christian lifestyle” and that she would have to sign a statement agreeing not to have premarital sex if she wanted to keep her job.