ATLANTA - Churches are places of work as well as houses of worship, according to a federal lawsuit on behalf of three female employees who were suspended from an Atlanta church after complaining that they were harassed. <br>
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The suit filed Thursday by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleges that the leadership of Mount Carmel Baptist Church retaliated against the women, who said a church official had made repeated sexual advances. <br>
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This is the first time the EEOC has taken a case against a church in Atlanta. The agency does not pursue cases in which an organization has fewer than 15 employees, and churches also are protected against government interference in their religious affairs. <br>
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S. Robert Royal, EEOC regional attorney in Atlanta, said neither restriction applies in the case of the 10,000-member Mount Carmel church. <br>
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``In this era of megachurches, churches in Atlanta are big business,'' Royal said. ``Churches operate not only as churches, but bookstores. They've got their own television ministries and recording companies.'' <br>
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Ted Lackland, one of Mount Carmel's attorneys, declined to comment Friday. ``I was not aware the lawsuit had been filed. I haven't seen the complaint, so I can't comment on it,'' Lackland said. <br>
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Named as defendants are Mount Carmel Baptist Church, God's Strength Records and T. Flemming Ministries. <br>
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``They function as one large integrated enterprise,'' Royal said. <br>
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``They're large. They function as any business,'' he said. ``Church business is big business. Senior pastors function more like CEOs or CFOs.'' <br>
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The women who were suspended Dec. 1, 2000 - Sharon Appleby, Sylvette Harvey and Aleesha Jones - were part of the church's administrative staff and not the ministerial staff. Had their work involved any religious work, the EEOC would have no practical legal grounds for the suit. <br>
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The agency lost a case about two years ago involving a music ministry director at a Catholic church in Raleigh, N.C., because the woman who was alleging sex discrimination fell under a rule of ``ministerial exception.'' <br>
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``It's very rare for the EEOC to sue a church,'' said David Grinberg, a spokesman for the federal agency's Washington headquarters. ``There's probably a handful of cases out there. It's not something we see a lot of.'' <br>
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The Mount Carmel suit seeks back pay, reinstatements, compensatory and punitive damages and policy changes at the church on sexual harassment and retaliation.
