Assistant Principal Accuses School of Firing Him for Opposing Play About Gay Student’s Murder – The Daily Beast

A former employee at a Colorado high school has sued his onetime district, accusing officials of firing him after he objected to the staging of The Laramie Project. In a complaint filed earlier this month, Corey McNellis, who served as Ponderosa High School’s assistant principal and athletic director, alleged that Douglas County School District terminated him for his “Christian belief and because he expressed his views.” The Laramie Project is a celebrated documentary theater piece based on real interviews after Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, was beaten and left to die in a Wyoming town in 1998. After Ponderosa’s theater company decided in October 2020 to perform it, McNellis raised concerns about “how the Christian religion comes across in the play.” An investigation was launched into his “religious comments,” during which it emerged that he had also complained about the school’s COVID-19 protocol communication and was allegedly “part of a good ole boys club” there. McNellis was fired shortly afterwards. He denied to The Denver Post on Wednesday that the episode “had anything to do with [being] anti-LGBTQ.”