Photo by Shana McDanold

By most accounts, Peter TerVeer was a model employee at the Library of Congress. An auditing analyst in the inspector general’s office, TerVeer received high marks on performance reviews, and in spring 2009, after working there about a year, appeared to be on track for a rewarding career in the federal ladder.

Until, he says, he came out to his superiors.

In an affidavit filed with a complaint to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, TerVeer, who was fired last Friday, said that once his supervisor learned he was gay, the library became a hostile place to work.

TerVeer, 30, was first hired on a contract basis in February 2008, according to his affidavit and documents he provided to DCist and other media. Eight months later, he was brought on full-time. TerVeer and his supervisor, John Mech, occasionally bickered about politics and religion but, TerVeer wrote in his affidavit, the relationship was mostly genial. Mech espoused conservative political and religious views in intra-office emails with TerVeer and other coworkers—“So you are to the right of God, are ya?” TerVeer and Mech’s department head, Nicholas Christopher, joked in a March 2009 message.

Despite their ideological differences, TerVeer said, he was friendly with Mech, and once attended a University of Maryland football game with Mech’s family, where he met Mech’s daughter. TerVeer and Mech’s daughter became Facebook friends; it was through that channel that the daughter learned of TerVeer’s sexual orientation.

At that point, TerVeer says, everything turned.

“I contend that I have been subjected to a hostile work environment by Mr. Mech since August 2009 on the basis of my sex (male), sexual orientation (homosexual) and religion (non-denominational Christian/agnostic),” TerVeer wrote in the affidavit.

After then, TerVeer says his job became increasingly difficult, with Mech imbuing more of his religious beliefs into workplace conversations and emails, such as language about the “need of redemption before God” and emails full of Christian edicts.

In an email dated August 27, 2009, Mech wrote:

Jesus clearly avoided making political statements but his blueprint for a just and peaceful society was given to us in the Pentateuch [Editor’s note: Another name for the Torah, or first five books of the Jewish Bible]. He prohibited sexual immorality including homosexuality, adultery and premarital sex. He called for death to anyone who shed innocent life and required 10 percent of a person’s earnings to run Israel, I believe all very good ideas.

The emails continued, but for a while TerVeer did not express his discomfort out of “respect for [Mech’s] position,” he wrote in the affidavit. On June 21, 2010, TerVeer says Mech dropped by his office and told him that homosexuality is a sin. During that conversation, Mech said he “wanted to educate me on Hell” and spouted off several biblical verses that proscribe homosexuality with the death penalty, according to the affidavit.

Gayle Osterberg, a spokeswoman for the Library of Congress, said neither the agency nor any of its employees would comment on an ongoing personnel matter. As a federal civilian organization, the library is required to follow Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which “prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin,” but not sexuality. However, the Library of Congress’ internal policies protect employees against harassment on the basis of sexual identity.

Still, TerVeer’s attorney, Thomas Simeone, says there is ample evidence that Mech’s behavior was rooted in religion. “Here’s a job he loved and did very well in, and under the federal labor laws, you theoretically can discriminate against someone based on sexual orientation, but you cannot for religion,” he told me in a phone interview.

“Everything had been exemplary remarks, then the satisfactory, which was questionable,” TerVeer said in a phone interview last week.

In June 2010, TerVeer was up for another performance review. His marks were middling, and he refused to sign off on the evaluation form in response to Mech’s criticisms. Though emails with other colleagues suggest that TerVeer’s work from April 2009 to March 2010 was commendable, he felt Mech was an unfair judge of his performance.

“I had significant concerns that many of Mr. Mech’s comments did not accurately reflect the quality of the work I performed and that my ratings were lower than they should have been,” TerVeer said in the affidavit. “I believe this was due to Mr. Mech’s religious beliefs and intolerance of my homosexuality.”

TerVeer’s refusal to approve the evaluation form resulted in a meeting with Mech and Christopher, the head of the inspector general office’s auditing division. TerVeer said in the affidavit that Christopher backed Mech, who shortly after the meeting, was given direct supervision of TerVeer’s work on a new project called Voyager that dealt with the library’s collections process.

The following year, TerVeer says, is when things got bad. “Basically the destruction of my career,” he told me. In the affidavit, TerVeer wrote that requirements of the Voyager project were to large for a single employee and that Mech often assigned unreasonable deadlines. Meanwhile, TerVeer still had to keep up with other tasks. Mech kept piling on the work but offered little by the way of supervisory guidance or help from other staffers, essential setting TerVeer up to fail, the affidavit charges.

TerVeer’s next annual performance review, in June 2011, was judged “minimally successful,” the second-lowest possible result. In the review, Mech cited TerVeer for inconsistent work and turning in the Voyager project 10 months after the original deadline. An outside firm contracted several years ago to do a similar project for the library tasked six full-time employees for over a year, according to the affidavit.

“The evidence will show that the upward path he was on leveled off and eventually started going down as a result of things unrelated to his performance,” Simeone said.

Based on the poor review, TerVeer was denied a slight salary bump. When TerVeer told Mech he intended to appeal the review and denial of a raise, he says Mech called a staff meeting in which he berated TerVeer for raising objections to the performance review.

Last August, TerVeer saw a therapist for the first time in his life.

In many ways, TerVeer’s story begins with the recession and the ravaged industrial heartland of the Upper Midwest.

TerVeer grew up in Fremont, Mich., a town of about 4,000 on the state’s western edge that is home to Gerber, the baby food company. He grew up attending a Christian Reformed church. (He now identifies as agnostic.) He played football in high school and at Hope College a short drive away in Holland until a couple of knee injuries ended his playing career. He came out to his parents when he was 22, an experience he recalled as one of the more emotionally difficult moments in his life, but said that his family has been supportive. TerVeer graduated with a business degree in 2005 and spent about a year and a half in Herndon, Va. as a salesman for the technology merchant DLT Solutions.

In 2006, he moved back home and started an independent contracting business handling transportation logistics for big manufacturers. Andersen Windows & Doors was a major client. TerVeer pulled down more than $100,000. But the economy tanked and the clients moved to cheaper, foreign-based logistics providers, and TerVeer shut down the business, which had been supporting his family.

Seeing the public sector as a good option in troubled times, TerVeer landed the analyst position in February 2008 and moved to an apartment in Dupont Circle.

“I’m a blue-collar man from Michigan,” he told me. “I’m not out here for anything else. That’s what I’m asking for. This is a story that’s rampant around here. I didn’t ask for this. I came here looking to come out and be free and open.”

And with his family on hard times, a steady government paycheck allowed him to send a little bit back home.

TerVeer’s physician and therapist both told the Library of Congress that TerVeer was suffering from severe anxiety and panic attacks stemming from the treatment he encountered in the office. He was losing weight, receding from his social life, enduring restless nights and seeing personal relationships crumble. He developed ulcers and constant pains in his stomach. Feelings of “utter devastation and depression” lingered over him, he said.

In September, following a summer full of weekly meetings with Mech that, according to the affidavit, only served to reinforce the hostile climate, TerVeer filed an allegation of discrimination. A few weeks later, on the advice of his doctor and therapist, he went on an extended—and unpaid—medical leave.

For a while, TerVeer had also moonlighted as a doorman at Number Nine, a gay bar in Logan Circle. On October 10, Christopher followed TerVeer to the bar and recorded video of him. TerVeer’s affidavit alleges that Christopher started harassing him while TerVeer was preparing his discrimination complaint during work hours. Now, it appeared, the harassment had become an invasion of privacy.

Three months of unpaid disability leave was expensive. Medical bills burned through TerVeer’s savings. He intended to apply for extended disability in January when the original period was up, but was unable to pay for the appointments necessary to get the approval for a longer leave of absence. But going back to the auditing office under Mech and Christopher was hardly an option, but a transfer was not being offered. TerVeer did not go back to work when the disability term ended on January 4. Without an extended leave, TerVeer officially became AWOL in the eyes of the Library of Congress.

Treatment continued to be expensive. In February, TerVeer lost his apartment. He’s been couch-surfing with friends since then. Later that month, the library initiated the process of terminating TerVeer’s employment. On March 29, Inspector General Karl W. Schornagel informed TerVeer he would be removed from his position permanently, effective April 6.

TerVeer, who at the peak of his federal service earned mid-five figures, said he now has about $12 to his name. He leaned on his family extensively for financial support since going on leave, but that’s about to dry up, too. His mother, back in Fremont, is on the verge of losing her home. She’s 60 and works two jobs, TerVeer said. By days, she works as a church secretary, and in the evening she mans the third shift at a plant that manufactures windows for Ford vehicles. The last bit of family support TerVeer received was a loan from a devoutly religious aunt who he said is still somewhat uneasy toward his homosexuality. “She still has hang-ups but she gave me a loan,” he said.

Simeone, TerVeer’s lawyer, hopes the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will make his client whole for enduring what he called a “hellish situation.” But if not, they’re considering legal action, too.

In the mean time, TerVeer is hoping he’ll be able to stay in Washington, both to press his case and to get his life back on track, but now at the point where he’s living almost exclusively on the generosity of others, it’s a tough road. “I’m essentially in limbo right now,” he said.

“I’m trying to pick up the pieces of the puzzle,” TerVeer continued. “This kind of stuff shouldn’t happen in the federal government, let alone the Library of Congress, let alone an office that’s independent. It’s a shame what it’s done to a 30-year-old from Michigan who came down here looking for nothing more than a new career. This was my everything.”