Gay teacher forced to quit after being outed by a blackmailer

A gay music teacher was forced to resign from a Lutheran school in Iowa earlier this year after someone hacked his phone and posted personal information about him to Facebook.

Matthew Gerhold was hired by Valley Lutheran High School in Cedar Valley last summer as the school’s music teacher. According to state records, he informed school officials at that time that he was gay.

The Lutheran school believed his «sexuality needed to be kept a secret», according to Judge Blair Bennett who recently presided over a public hearing on Gerhold’s request for unemployment benefits, iowacapitaldispatch.com reports. The school hired him, the judge found, on the condition that he refrain from sharing information about his sexual orientation with students, and that he refrain from dating while employed at the school.

According to iowacapitaldispatch.com, in January of this year, Gerhold contacted his superiors to report that his phone had been hacked and someone was attempting to blackmail him by threatening to share information about his sexuality with his friends, family and employer.

Shortly after Gerhold reported the alleged blackmail attempt, information about him – including photos of some kind — was posted to the school’s Facebook page. Gerhold was then summoned to the administration offices and placed on leave.

Pastor and school board member informed later that Gerhold would be fired after upcoming school boarding meeting and it would be better that he just quit. Later that evening he gave his resignation base on the information pastor have given.

Judge Blair Bennett ruled that Gerhold was eligible for benefits because he had committed no workplace misconduct that would disqualify him from eligibility.