Flight Assistant for Catholic beliefs demands United Airlines

A Catholic cabin crew, who says that United Airlines dismissed him for supporting Catholic teachings about marriage and gender identity while talking to a co -worker, he can proceed with a lawsuit against his union for not defending him, according to a federal judge.

Rubén Sánchez, from Anchorage (Alaska, United States), states that the airline investigated its extensive publication publications Only after receiving what he describes as “unfounded accusations”, which arose from a conversation on a night flight in May 2023.

Sanchez says that the company found nothing to violate its social media policy, but fired it anyway.

The flight assistant filed a lawsuit in January 2025 against United Airlines and the union to which he belonged while working for the airline, the Association of Flight-CWA Auxiliaryin the United States District Court for the Central District of California.

In judicial documents he alleges that the airline violated his right to express his religious beliefs and discriminated against his age, since he was 52 years old at the time of dismissal two years ago. He claimed to have been a “United flight assistant” for almost 28 years.

Sánchez’s complaint says that when he met virtually with an airline investigator, in June 2023, to discuss the accusations against him, the investigator “reacted negatively when Sánchez explained the religious basis of his beliefs” and that his union representative “did nothing to support him.”

After United dismissed him, the union told Sánchez that he would not represent him in the arbitration unless he paid the cost of the cost that corresponded to the union and hired his own lawyer, according to judicial documents.

In March 2025, the union’s lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing that Sánchez’s complaint “did not present sufficient allegations to suggest in a plausible way that the union’s decision was based on a covert manner on the age or on religious motifs”, and that the federal law that regulates the fair representation by a union prohibits this type of demands.

The lawyers also argued that the union refused to represent Sánchez in arbitration due to “the lack of success in other cases in which flight assistants for their activities on social networks were dismissed.”

The judge did not agree with the union arguments to dismiss the case, stating that Sanchez presented sufficient evidence to continue his demand for the union to acted arbitrarily by not representing it in the arbitration.

Judge Christina Snyder, appointed by President Bill Clinton, also wrote in her decision, dated June 30, which Sánchez established a “case First facie“That the union discriminated against her age and religion, which means that, at first glance, her claim is plausible according to the evidence she has presented so far.

The case is probably directed to a jury trial, unless the union appeals the judge’s decision or parties reach an agreement.

United Airlines lawyers have not responded so far to Sánchez’s claims in judicial documents. The judge has extended the deadline to do so until August 1. A United Airlines spokesman contacted by CNA – EWTN news agency – refused to comment.

CNA contacted a lawyer who represents the union at the trial and with a union spokesman, but did not get an answer until the publication of this article.

His case, meanwhile, has apparently attracted the attention of those responsible for the giant social network X.

“Sánchez’s demand has the support of X Corp.,” said Sánchez’s lawyers in A statement Published on Thursday on the Buffe website, referring to the company that owns the social networks called X, previously known as Twitter from 2006 to July 2023. Last Friday it was not possible to contact an X spokesman to collect their comments.

What is Sánchez accused of?

Sánchez, who is also a member of the Alaska National Air Guard, was a last -minute substitute flight assistant on a nightfall in Los Angeles to Cleveland, on May 30, 2023. To stay awake during the night, he held a quiet conversation with a flight attendant partner, according to judicial documents.

“Sánchez and his colleague talked about their working conditions and their daily lives. As both were Catholics, the conversation derived to Catholic theology and, since the activities of the Pride month United were going to begin on June 1, towards Catholic teachings about marriage and sexuality, ”says Sánchez’s complaint.

A few days later, a user of what was then Twitter complained with the airline through his own account on the platform for Sánchez’s comments, claiming that he had heard the two cabin crew during the flight, although Sanchez’s lawyers affirm in the judicial documents that the anonymous person, who had already discussed with Sánchez in the social networks previously, was not on the flight.

The Twitter user said that Sánchez “openly hates black people and is antitrans,” according to judicial documents.

During a subsequent meeting with a United investigator, Sánchez denied having made racist comments, according to his complaint. When asked about the accusation that it is “Antitrans”, Sánchez “spoke of a conversation that he had with a co -worker in which they discussed the church’s teachings about marriage between a man and a woman, and that a person cannot change his sex.”

“Sánchez also pointed out that, although he is homosexual, he agrees with the teachings of the church,” says the complaint, adds: “The conversation during the flight remained quietly in the kitchen, far from all the passengers, and no passenger reported any problem.”

During a subsequent investigation of his publications on social networks, United highlighted 35 of more than 140,000 publications “and accused Sánchez of lacking dignity, respect, professionalism and responsibility in X, when Sánchez was out of service,” according to the complaint.

But Sánchez’s judicial action states that United had never previously complained about their publications on social networks, which date back to 2010, despite several members of the intermediate and superior management followed in their accounts.

Sanchez states in the complaint that he suspects that his age was a determining factor in dismissal, since United prefers the youngest flight assistants and includes them in their advertising, and because “United has a history of saying goodbye to the oldest flight assistants for minor infractions.”

Sanchez also argues in the judicial documents that United Airlines treated him differently from other employees, including his dismissal for personal publications on social networks in which he expressed his opinions about politics, social issues and religion, while other United employees with more problematic publications in social networks retained their positions, as a hostess that rebuked some United clients calling them “drunk camels ”and another hostess that published sexually provocative images of itself with the United uniform.

The hostess that published the images of itself was finally fired, but just because it did not erase a single image in which it appeared with the United uniform, according to Sánchez’s demand.

“Sánchez was interrogated and investigated for his publications on social networks due to his age, religion and political beliefs, while his younger co -workers or with different religious and political beliefs were not treated in the same way,” says the complaint.

“Sánchez’s dismissal served as an implicit warning and message for the other United employees that the expression of opinions that remained from the liberal perspectives on the race, the political figures, the transgender movement and the public health issues would not be tolerated,” Sánchez’s lawyers wrote in the complaint filed in January.

Another case

Sanchez states that his case was not the first in which the union left religious members who conflict with his employer for issues related to sexuality.

In May 2022, two flight assistants who identify as Christians, Marley Brown and Lacey Smith, filed a lawsuit against Alaska Airlines and the union, claiming that they were fired for publishing comments against the Equality Lawa bill presented in Congress in 2021 that intended to add sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes in the Federal Civil Rights Law and limit the defenses of religious freedom against claims derived from it.

The airline had published on an internal website of the company its support for the bill of the Equality Law and had invited employees to publish their own comments in this regard, according to the subsequent demand of Brown and Smith. However, when women published comments in which they questioned the bill and the support of the company to it, the company eliminated their comments and subsequently fired them, according to the demand.

According to the lawsuit, the union did not strongly defend women. At one point, according to the demand, a union representative told Brown “that if he pushed someone on his face on a plane and that was recorded on video, it would not be possible to offer much defense”, comparing his opposition to the legislation proposed for religious reasons with a physical aggression.

In May 2024, Judge Barbara Jacobs Rothstein, appointed by President Jimmy Carter, dismissed the lawsuit. However, the two women have appealed.

Las oral allegations From the Alaska Airlines case they are scheduled for Friday, August 22 in the Court of Appeal of the Ninth Circuit of the United States, in San Francisco.

A Alaska Airlines spokesman contacted by CNA refused to comment.

Translated and adapted by the ACI Press team. Originally published in CNA.