BOSTON
A man who failed the Massachusetts bar exam because he refused to answer a question about gay marriage has filed a federal lawsuit, claiming the test violated his rights and that his religious beliefs were targeted.
Stephen Dunne is seeking $9.75 million in the suit against the Massachusetts Board of Bar Examiners and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. He was denied a license to practice law in May after scoring 268.9 on the exam, just shy of the passing grade of 270.
Dunne, who is representing himself in the case, refused to answer a question addressing the rights of two married lesbians, their children and their property, and claims in the suit that it cost him a passing score.
In the suit, Dunne called the question “morally repugnant and patently offensive,” and said he refused to answer it because he believed it legitimized same-sex marriage and same-sex parenting, which is contrary to his moral beliefs.
Dunne claims the Massachusetts state government is “purposely advancing secular humanism’s homosexual agenda.”
The “disguised mechanism to screen applicants according to their political ideology has the discriminatory impact of persecuting and oppressing [Dunne’s] sincere religious practices and beliefs” protected by the First Amendment, and was “invasive and burdensome,” according to the lawsuit filed in June.
