Price said that the court held that religious institutions were permitted "to form, maintain and protect their common religious ethos. This safeguard is no longer in place."
"Under the amended law, it will be harder for religious institutions to protect their religious ethos against employees who undermine that ethos – in particular, where employees identify as LGBT. It will also be more difficult to defend legal cases in which they are accused of 'discrimination' for disciplinary action," Price added.
The Department of Justice and Equality spearheaded efforts to amend the Employment Equality Act. The department was also responsible for laying out changes to be made upon the legalization of same-sex marriage, which occurred by popular vote earlier this year.
An official from the Department of Justice and Equality maintained that "(t)he amendment is important because it protects LGBTI teachers in state-funded schools and staff in other similarly-funded religiously-run institutions from arbitrary discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation."
"The amendment will end the chilling effect the current law has on such LGBTI employees and does not in any way reduce the protections available to any other group in society or interfere with freedom of religion," the official told CNA.
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But Price argues that the law will be misused and will only undermine religious organizations' mission.
"For example, under the new amendment, a teacher at a Christian school can now openly talk about his homosexual relationship even though this is contrary to the school's ethos. The question now arises, 'Is the school able to take disciplinary action against the teacher's behavior without being liable for unlawful discrimination?'" said Price.
"It is safe to assume that many schools will ignore employee breaches of conduct to avoid being sued for discrimination. This significantly undermines the ability of religious institutions to practice their ethos."