The Michigan Professor Who Officiated a Wedding and Lost Everything

Joseph Kuilema's fight against Calvin University is heading to the Michigan Supreme Court — and could reshape protections for LGBTQ+ allies statewide

Joseph Kuilema Headshots 13 — Joseph Kuilema. Courtesy photo

Published: March 19, 2026 | Last Updated: March 25, 2026

Joseph Kuilema keeps his Professor of the Year award on a shelf in his office at Grand Valley State University, where he now teaches. It was voted on by Calvin University's graduating seniors in 2019, the same year the administration denied him tenure for the second time over his support for LGBTQ+ inclusion. He'd been denied in 2017, too, and both times had his contract renewed for two more years rather than being let go. "It's a good reminder that my quarrel was never with the students," Kuilema tells Pride Source, "and that this was never about teaching."

What it was about, depending on who you ask, is either a professor who violated the expectations of a Christian institution or a man who helped two of his former students access their civil rights and was punished for it. In 2022, Calvin University terminated Kuilema after he officiated the wedding of a former student, a trans man, to his wife. Now Kuilema's case is heading to the Michigan Supreme Court, where it could establish new legal ground on whether Michigan's civil rights law protects people who are fired not for who they are, but for who they stand beside.

The wedding took place in October 2021. "It never occurred to me that this would be the end with me and Calvin," Kuilema told Michigan Public. "A former student of mine, a transgender male, asked me to officiate his wedding to his lovely wife and I thought, 'Great, this is fantastic, let's do it.'" Before agreeing, he consulted colleagues in his department and members of his personal church, and they all told him it seemed within bounds. Three months later, Calvin launched an investigation, arguing that because one of the individuals being married was also a Calvin employee, Kuilema had aided another employee in violating institutional rules. He was terminated in 2022.

Calvin University, founded in Grand Rapids by the Christian Reformed Church, aligns with the denomination's belief that marriage is strictly between a man and a woman. The institution expects its faculty to uphold these values. "While there is room for personal disagreement with Christian Reformed Church doctrine, the university has clear expectations for employees regarding teaching, scholarship and personal conduct," Calvin officials said in a statement.

The Christian Reformed Church is a Dutch Reformed denomination headquartered in Grand Rapids with roughly 1,000 congregations across North America. For much of its history, the CRC occupied a distinctive space in American Protestantism, rooted in Calvinist theology but intellectually rigorous, open to engaging with science and the broader culture.

Kuilema was baptized and raised in the tradition. "My own grief comes from seeing a denomination I once respected, one that would embrace the science of evolution and allow, if not celebrate, women in office, become just another generic white evangelical church," Kuilema says. "My own sense is that this is largely political and not theological, although it's difficult to separate the two." He goes further, describing the CRC as "in danger of becoming a generic white evangelical MAGA church," and points to the philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff, one of Calvin's most prominent intellectual exports, who Kuilema says has essentially called the denomination "fundamentalist." "That's tragic," he says.

I helped two individuals access their basic civil rights as Americans to marry one another. And I don't think that we should give religion a blank check to discriminate.
Joseph Kuilema, Grand Valley State University professor

To be sure, the denomination has been moving in an increasingly conservative direction since Kuilema officiated the wedding. In 2022, the CRC elevated its traditional stance on marriage and sexuality to "confessional" status, making it a core belief rather than a matter open to debate. In 2025, the denomination went further, ruling that its churches, pastors, elders and deacons must agree with the CRC on matters of confession, including sexuality, or face discipline. When Kuilema officiated the wedding in 2021, the denomination hadn't yet drawn that line, and he and his colleagues felt the Calvin administration was taking a harder position than the CRC itself.

Since the CRC's 2024 synod instructed LGBTQ-affirming congregations to either repent or leave, at least 38 U.S. congregations and 12 Canadian churches have begun or completed the process of disaffiliation. The departures are concentrated in Grand Rapids, where at least eight churches are leaving, including First Christian Reformed Church, one of the four original congregations formed at the denomination's founding in 1857. In February 2025, 33 CRC ministers were ordained into the Reformed Church in America during a ceremony at The Community Church in Ada, just outside Grand Rapids.

For Kuilema, watching the evolution of such a foundational element of his faith has been complicated. "At one level, it's a real loss, a profound sense of abandonment and alienation," he explains. "That said, I, of course, also know that a lot of LGBTQ+ folks, including those in the CRC, have experienced far more serious rejection, for far longer. I'm a social worker, and we'd call it spiritual abuse."

He has been overwhelmed, he says, by the outpouring of support from Calvin's LGBTQ+ community since his termination, including former students, colleagues and alumni from decades ago who have reached out to express solidarity. "Mixed in with that gratitude is a real sense of loss — a complex grief," he says. "There was at one point a glimmer of hope that Calvin might take a different direction, and it seems like that is now firmly in the past. My sense is a lot of folks are still coming to terms with that. I know I am."

Joseph Kuilema Headshots 10 — Joseph Kuilema. Courtesy photo

Kuilema filed suit against Calvin in 2023, alleging the university violated his rights under Michigan's Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act. The legal question at the center of the case is a novel one for Michigan courts: Does the state's civil rights law prohibit “associational discrimination” on the basis of sex?

No one on either side of the argument disputes that if one of the two people Kuilema married had been a different sex, Calvin wouldn't have cared. What Calvin asserts is that Kuilema can only file an Elliott-Larsen claim if his own sex was the basis for the termination. In a 2-1 decision, the Michigan Court of Appeals agreed, finding that "the university's decision to terminate his employment was based upon his decision to officiate a same-sex wedding" and that the outcome would have been the same regardless of Kuilema's sex.

Kuilema and his attorney, Charissa Huang, are asking the Michigan Supreme Court to decide whether Elliott-Larsen covers sex-based associational discrimination. While Michigan courts have recognized associational discrimination claims involving race, no court has yet addressed whether such a claim can be brought on the basis of sex.

"So at one level this is a case about whether there are any protections for allies," Kuilema says. "We are arguing that if you can fire someone for officiating a civil LGBTQ+ wedding, that threatens marriage equality itself." He wants people to understand a detail that often gets lost in the coverage. "We're talking about the right to marriage here, not religious marriage. This was not a religious ceremony."

Calvin University maintains that constitutional principles of religious freedom protect the private Christian university's employment decisions. According to Huang, the university claims an ecclesiastical abstention doctrine gives it the right to make employment decisions without court interference. Huang and Kuilema disagree. "The question that the court needs to deliberate on is whether this case requires the court to determine any ecclesiastical, any religious doctrine question," Huang told Michigan Public. "And Joe and I firmly believe that this case does not."

"I helped two individuals access their basic civil rights as Americans to marry one another," Kuilema says. "And I don't think that we should give religion a blank check to discriminate."

A date has not yet been set for the Michigan Supreme Court to hear oral arguments.

Asked what he would say directly to queer and trans people who have complicated relationships with the Reformed tradition, Kuilema's answer doesn't involve legal arguments or denominational politics. "I would say I'm sorry. There are really no other words," he says. "The Reformed tradition had all the tools to get this right and has chosen not to. This is a really terrifying moment. The CRC slammed the door on its LGBTQ+ members at a time when the federal government is increasingly seeking to oppress and erase queer people."

"I hope people are taking care of each other and finding spaces for joy and love," he adds. "I love you. I think God loves you, but if you want no part of that, I totally understand."