A federal judge concluded last month that evidence showed a former Denver Health paramedic was not fired because of his sexual orientation, as he alleged, but because his employer believed he exhibited poor judgment and resisted efforts to coach him professionally.

Jordan Christensen filed suit under federal and state civil rights law asserting unwelcome treatment from his superiors after he posted on Facebook in 2015 that he was gay. He alleged he was the subject of derogatory comments and jokes, intimidation and differential treatment.

Christensen reported the harassment to an investigator in March 2019, but there was no improvement. In December 2020, after Christensen and his superior responded to an emergency call, Denver Health terminated him. Christensen maintained he followed protocol during the call, and that his termination was actually motivated by LGBTQ discrimination.

Christensen’s supervisor, Kevin McVaney, “unequivocally answered that he believes homosexuality is a sin, that he believes marriage is only between a man and a woman, and it is a sin for a man to marry another man,” argued Christensen’s lawyers. “Dr. McVaney’s personal beliefs about homosexuality, coupled with the circumstances surrounding Mr. Christensen’s termination can lead a factfinder to determine that Dr. McVaney is not trustworthy, and Defendant’s proffered reason is pretextual.”

Denver Health responded with a different version of events.

During the December 2020 emergency call, Christensen “improperly administered a dangerous medication to a patient in violation of Denver Health’s Paramedic Protocols,” the hospital argued. “He subsequently failed and refused to take coaching and direction about his improper medical care on that call from his physician supervisors, including the physician under whose license he worked.”

Denver Health also claimed Christensen had developed a reputation as “a defensive and highly aggressive paramedic.” As for McVaney’s comments about homosexuality, the hospital noted Christensen’s attorneys “pried” into his religious beliefs about sexuality and discovered McVaney’s faith-based objections applied to unmarried heterosexual couples, too.

In a July 12 order, U.S. District Court Senior Judge Raymond P. Moore agreed Christensen failed to demonstrate Denver Health treated him worse than similarly situated paramedics. Further, the evidence showed Denver Health held him responsible for improperly medicating the patient in December 2020 — even though others were present — because he was in charge.

“The termination notice does not rely solely on Plaintiff’s poor judgment,” Moore noted, as “he was terminated both because he engaged in ‘bad medicine’ and refused to accept coaching about such ‘bad medicine.’ Indeed, the record shows that Plaintiff continued to insist he did nothing wrong even after he was terminated, stating in text messages: ‘I still stand behind what I did (it wasn’t even anything bad!) and I’d do it again in a heartbeat’.”

Moore also concluded there was no evidence McVaney treated Christensen differently because of his sexual orientation, or that the unprofessional comments directed at him amounted to “the steady stream of vulgar and offensive epithets needed to establish the existence of a hostile work environment.”

Attorneys for both sides did not respond to a request for comment.

The case is Christensen v. Denver Health and Hospital Authority.