United Airlines fires Catholic flight attendant after he criticized LGBTQ ideology

United Airlines fired a Catholic flight attendant with nearly three decades of professional experience after he expressed criticisms of the LGBTQ movement during a flight.

Ruben D. Sanchez Jr., an airman in the Alaska Air National Guard, was working on a May 2023 domestic red-eye flight when he struck up a casual conversation with a coworker, also a Catholic, the details of which were anonymously posted to X (formerly Twitter).

The New York Post’s Mark Kellner reported that Sanchez “was trying to stay awake” during “the last-minute assignment, and ended up speaking with another flight attendant about their shared Catholic faith — and the next day’s start of Pride month.”

Sanchez told The Post that the nature of the discussion “was just innocent.” 

“I said, ‘You know, as Catholics, we’re not really supposed to be observing Pride,’” Sanchez recounted:

“The church will never believe that men give birth, women have penises or that the church should bless same-sex marriages because marriage is a sacrament, and it’s not meant for two men or two women or three people or whatever.” That’s all I said.

Sanchez’s criticisms were “overheard by an unidentified person who then complained to the airline via X,” wrote Kellner. Sanchez “said neither the airline nor the Association of Flight Attendants [AFA] union would take his side in the face of an anonymous X complaint.”

The Catholic airman and former airline employee explained that observing “Pride” month is “a big deal at United,” which “has all these things about Pride, with the Pride flags everywhere” and, in at least one case, “drag-queen DJ s” playing at a United airport terminal.

Furthermore, the 52-year-old expressed to the Post that he “is too young to retire and too old to start new.” He has since taken “a pay cut from what I made with United,” he said.

Sanchez “wants to raise $18,000 via GoFundMe to continue the fight to get his job back,” Kellner indicated:

Sanchez said because the union said it wouldn’t represent him in arbitration, he tried — and failed — to raise roughly $15,000 to pay those costs. 

He hopes to use the GoFundMe proceeds to cover existing legal bills and move forward with his case.

The fired Catholic took to X to express his desire for President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming second administration to take up the cause of outspoken religious employees like himself.

“Dealing with both [United] and [AFA] the past 17 months,” he wrote, “I hope the #TrumpVance administration picks a Labor Secretary that is senstive to workers of Faith like myself, that they don’t get canceled for not renouncing their faith when going to work!”

As of late Friday, Trump has not announced a nominee to head the federal Labor Department.

CatholicVote Vice President Joshua Mercer stated: “It appears that a Catholic flight attendant was fired for simply sharing his Catholic faith. This is a troubling accusation.”

“Millions of Catholics are air travelers,” Mercer added. “We need answers. Catholics deserve to know if United respects their faith.”