What are my legal options? I worked at a church in Southern Indiana...

[MinisterOfYouth]

For over 2 years, I worked at a church in Southern Indiana as their minister of youth (from October 2003-January 2006). In December 2005, my wife and I went through a civil marriage ceremony so that I could move out of my parents' house and keep my scholarship at school. We were not planning to move in together until after our formal, religious ceremony that following October so as not to be in violation of the church's sensibilities and beliefs about stuff like that.

Well, I had been visiting my wife's family in Northern Indiana for Christmas and while there, that is when we went to the courthouse and filled out our paperwork and stuff. When I returned to Southern Indiana, my pastor/employer and I discussed my "marriage" and at the time, he seemed okay. This was on a Saturday. The Next day, before services, he took me aside along with the other member of the leadership board of the church and told me, to quote, "We can't have the students thinking that what you did was okay." I wasn't sure what that meant, but I was asked to resign from my position as youth minister that day. It upset me, but I didn't think much of it cuz I was actually considering resigning anyway due to some other disagreements he and I were having on other unrelated topics.

I thought it was all over until this past week. For the past month and a half, I have been interviewing with a small church here in Northern Indiana for a youth minister job at their church. Everything was going very well, and they were pretty intent on hiring me, they just wanted us to have a few weeks to visit the church, meet the people, and see if we thought it would be a good fit for us. We agreed to that, and the process continued. This past Sunday, though, rather than being hired, they offered me a volunteer position for an indefinite period of time based on things my previous pastor told them in a phone call.

He told them (and I would assume he has told this to a number of other churches too cuz I have applied at probably 50 to 75 different ones since graduating from college 2 years ago) that I am untrustworthy as a result of my wife and I's decision to elope. He is telling people that I violated a signed "covenant" that stated that I would go through a 4 month pre-marital counseling curriculum. The problem is, I never signed anything stating that. I represented the church at a ceremony stating that the church, when marrying someone, would put them through that curriculum. But, my wife and I were not going to go through that church or that pastor, so we would have been under the guidance of our chosen pastor as to what kind of counseling, if any, to go through. But, as a result of his stating that I am untrustworthy for this very reason, and stating that because of his feeling that I am untrustworthy, he could not recommend me to work at this church.

What, if any, legal options do I have in this situation?

He should not be interfering with your new job opportunities...

If someone publicly says or writes anything factually untrue and it damages you, you indeed can sue for slander, libel, defamation, interference with business relations etc. -- or at least threaten to do so and give a warning.