For-profit businesses with sincerely held religious beliefs are exempt from LGBTQ discrimination liability under a decision this week by a federal judge in Texas. The ruling om Sunday came in response to the US Supreme Court’s 2020 landmark ruling in Bostock v Clayton County, Georgia, which held that LGBTQ people are protected from discrimination under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The Bostock ruling left open the question of whether and how the anti-discrimination provisions applied to religious entities.
“But how these doctrines protecting religious liberty interact with Title VII are questions for future cases too,” wrote Justice Neil Gorsuch in the 2020 majority opinion.
In answer to these questions, US District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth held that Braidwood Management Inc, which operates three Christian healthcare businesses in Katy, Texas, is exempt from LGBTQ anti-discrimination protections in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act under both the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Currently, Braidwood Management Inc. does not employ individuals “who are engaged in homosexual behavior or gender non-conforming conduct of any sort,” does not recognize same-sex marriage or extend employee benefits to same-sex partners and enforces a sex-specific dress and grooming code, according to court documents.
Separately, O’Connor ruled that other religious non-profits, including Bear Creek Bible Church, a non-denominational church in Keller, Texas, can fire or refuse to hire LGBTQ employees under Title VII’s religious exemptions.
The case arose after both Briarwood and Bear Creek sued the US Equal Opportunity Commission in response to the Bostock v Clayton County US Supreme Court decision. This new ruling allows both organisations to continue their employment practices unhindered by fear of liability for LGBTQ discrimination. However, the decision can be appealled to federal appellate court.
This is the latest in a series of cases aimed at pinpointing where religious rights end and anti-discrimination protections begin. The debate is set to continue on Capitol Hill as Congress is expected to consider the Equality Act, a sweeping LGBTQ rights bill passed by the House of Representatives in February, and Fairness for All, a rival bill that would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity while carving out religious exemptions for faith-based organisations.
Meanwhile, Texas voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly supported a measure barring governments from taking any kind of action that limits religious services, such as the public health orders that shut down houses of worship and businesses earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Proposition 3, which will add a clause to the Texas Constitution forbidding state or local authorities from prohibiting or limiting religious services, garnered 62.4 per cent of votes, according to unofficial results from the Texas secretary of state.
The measure had the support of the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops and some other – but not all – religious groups.
John Greiner, who pastors the non-denominational Glorious Way Church in Houston, called the measure crucial. He said individual churches and people who go to church “should be in charge of their own health care decisions, their own risks-to-reward behaviours.”
“The church should be the place where people go to get healed. There’s lots of churches and some don’t believe in healing…They should be free to close if that’s what they want to do, but I don’t think that the government should impose that upon any group at all,” Greiner told Religion News Service.
Amanda Tyler, executive director for the Baptist Joint Committee, said the measure was overly broad and unnecessary. She previously told RNS it sends “a damaging message that religious people are more concerned about special treatment than they are about the good of their communities.”
Tyler said Texas already has strong protections, pointing to the state’s Religious Freedom and Restoration Act “that we believe provides the right balancing standard to decide issues in the free exercise rights of individuals and communities [that] might come into conflict with government interests.”
