From: NewNowNext
A federal judge ruled this week that religiously motivated discrimination against transgender people is constitutionally protected.
On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Sean Cox held that the Supreme Court’s 2014 ruling allowing Hobby Lobby to opt out of Obamacare for religious reasons also protected a Detroit funeral home’s right to fire Aimee Stephens, a transgender employee at the firm.
Stephens told RG & GR Funeral Homes she was transitioning in 2013, writing a letter to her supervisor indicating she would soon start coming to work in appropriate women’s business attire.
Two weeks later, Stephens was fired—her boss told her what she was “proposing to do” was unacceptable.
In 2014, the EEOC declared her rights were protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits gender-based discrimination. It marked the first time the agency sued a business on behalf of a transgender person.
But Judge Cox ruled that the RG & GR successfully argued having Aimee on staff would interfere with its ability “to conduct business in accordance with its religious beliefs.”
He noted the home’s website indicates the company’s “highest priority is to honor God in all that we do,” and cited the owner’s claim that “the Bible teaches that a person’s sex is an immutable God-given gift.”
Cox suggested the EEOC should have tried harder to find a middle ground.
“If the compelling interest is truly in eliminating gender stereotypes, the court fails to see why the EEOC couldn’t propose a gender-neutral dress code as a reasonable accommodation that would be a less restrictive means of furthering that goal under the facts presented here.”
But critics say the “religious belief” defense just opens up a Pandora’s box.
Could a Jewish restaurant fire an employee for not keeping kosher at home? Or a Catholic bakery refuse to make a wedding cake for a second marriage?
“It would mean any religious employer would suddenly have a defense to firing someone in violation of any civil rights law as long as it was based on religious belief,” says the ACLU’s Josh Block.”It’s a very odd decision and there are a million different ways it can and should be reversed,” Block said.
Stephens is now working at Sinai-Grace Hospital in Detroit. She is facing serious health issues—recovering from back surgery and on dialysis for kidney failure—but is accepted as her authentic self.
“I am who I am. I won’t change that,” she told NBC News. “I regret the judge’s decision. But I am still happy where I’m at in life.”
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