Discrimination against a single mother with a child because she is unmarried would appear to be a form of marital status and/or parental status discrimination. However, some courts have held that religious organizations or organizations working with youth may discriminate against employees who do not subscribe to the organization's principles, as long as those principles are applied to all employees. If such organizations have specific principles condemning premarital sex, they have been allowed to terminate unmarried pregnant employees on the basis that they were terminated for engaging in premarital sex. However, to avoid a valid claim of sex discrimination, these employers would need to demonstrate that they do not treat men who are known to engage in premarital sex differently than women who engage in premarital sex. The latest Supreme Court decision on this issue articulated that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act protects religious owners of a closely held for-profit corporation in making employment decisions based on their sincere religious beliefs. If you work for a non-religious employer, however, your employer may find it difficult to maintain a legitimate business justification for policies or practices that discriminate against unmarried women who are either pregnant or already have children. The personal religious beliefs of one supervisor in this situation would rarely, if ever, matter from a legal point of view, especially if other company employees had been treated differently. For more information on this topic visit our Religious Discrimination page.