Dale Schowengerdt, legal prodigy who opposed Roeland Park anti-discrimination ordinance, will defend the Catholic church in Colleen Simon lawsuit

In May, The Kansas City Star’s Mary Sanchez wrote an excellent column about Colleen Simon, the former director of social ministry at St. Francis Xavier Church who was fired by the church after a previous Star article had revealed in passing that she was a lesbian. 

Simon has since filed a lawsuit against Bishop Robert Finn and the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, claiming that she was terminated because of her same-sex marriage, despite the fact that the church was aware she was a lesbian when it hired her.

Simon’s lawsuit was filed in mid-July. Over the weekend, her attorney, E.E. Keenan, sent over a request for discovery to the lawyer representing Finn and the church. Guess who that is? 

It is Dale Schowengerdt, of the Alliance Defending Freedom. You may remember Schowengerdt as that guy who doesn’t live in Roeland Park but showed up at a Roeland Park City Council meeting to lecture everyone about why the city shouldn’t pass an anti-discrimination ordinance that would protect the LGBT community. After several months of ugly debate, that measure failed. Then there was a revote, and it passed. 

Much of the opposition in Roeland Park came from St. Agnes, a Catholic parish in the city. Apparently the diocese liked the moxie it saw out of Schowengerdt during that civic ordeal. He’ll be in charge of trying to convince a jury that it’s OK for a church to knowingly hire a gay person and then fire that person for being gay. Should be interesting.