Woman sues daycare company for allegedly firing her because she wouldn’t read gay/LGBT books to kids

A former daycare worker claims she was fired because she refused to read children’s books that included gay or lesbian characters.

A California daycare provider is being sued by a former employee who claims she was dismissed for objecting, on religious grounds, to reading children’s books that depicted same-sex couples.

Former Studio City employee Nelli Parisenkova has filed a case in California Superior Court.

The complaint claims that Parisenkova worked at Bright Horizons for four years, during which time she was aware of the books at the facility but was never required to study them.

The location’s director, lesbian Katy Callas, learned about Parisenkova’s ideas in April and took offense to them, which led to Parisenkova’s dismissal.

“Bright Horizons did not try to negotiate or even inquire whether a reasonable accommodation might be made. Instead, Bright Horizons issued a misleading counseling document, cut off her life insurance, had her undergo diversity training, and urged her to leave her job. Due to her inability to return to work without an apartment, Bright Horizons laid off Ms. Parisenkova.

Plaintiffs in the suit allege that Bright Horizons and its employees engaged in unlawful retaliation, failed to prevent discrimination and harassment, engaged in religiously motivated harassment, engaged in wrongful termination, failed to accommodate, unlawfully discharged, and treated plaintiffs differently.

During a press conference on Thursday, Thomas More Law Society Special Counsel Paul Jonna, who is assisting Parisenkova in her legal representation, said that the situation was “a clear-cut case of one of the largest childcare employers in the country having anti-religious workplace policies that promote indoctrination of young children with the LGBT agenda.”

“Callas called Nelli into her office, questioned her angrily, told her that if she did not want to celebrate diversity this was not the place for her to work, gave her an administrative leave memo, escorted her outside with a security guard, and then left her standing there in the 96-degree heat with no transportation,” Jonna said.

For this reason, Nelli walked 20 minutes in the heat, waited 45 minutes for transit, and was exhausted for the following two days. Her fear of going back to work was palpable.

Bright Horizons, which was founded in 1986, is a multinational childcare corporation with over 26,000 workers working in its hundreds of sites worldwide.

Bright Horizons has long been vocal in its support for the LGBT movement, which it views as integral to its larger mission of promoting diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

In October of 2018, Bright Horizons, for instance, published a report detailing the ways in which its centers observed LGBT History Month by holding Pride parades and reading books like “Daddy, Poppa, and Me” and “Mommy, Momma, and Me.”

It was announced in November 2019 that Bright Horizons supports the Equality Act, a contentious piece of legislation that would include sexual orientation and gender identity in federal anti-discrimination laws.