BAD NEWS, GOOD NEWS

Judge Julia Smith Gibbons, a George W. Bush appointee who has served on the US 6th District Court of Appeals since 2002 has ruled that businesses owned by religious institutions have the right to fire at will homosexuals.

W was a gift to America that just keeps giving.

The good news, such as it is, is that the judge also ruled that taxpayers have the right to challenge government funding of businesses that do so.

What a relief.  Discrimination is good but at least I don't have to pay for it.

Thanks much.

The worst part of this complex decision is that despite "the good news" the decision further enshrines the notion that religion is above constitutional law; and we move one step closer to two very different Americas.  Gibbons agrees that I may not have to fund organizations that would destroy my life, but it's Constitutionally legal for them to destroy my life.

This federal court ruling further embeds in our legal environment the principal that discrimination is not discrimination when it is done in the name of delusion religion.

In one America, civil rights are an absolute and guaranteed to all law-abiding citizens.  In the other America, people who claim to be Christians do not have to abide by the law.

The unavoidable and profoundly disturbing question that continues to haunt me is whether our increasingly bipolar nation can survive as a democracy.

In fact, in one of these Americas, mobs of Christians step way outside of their churches and challenge and even dissolve Constitutionally sound laws and judicial decisions that they believe are in opposition to their "core values"--as if values and American Christianity still have anything in common.

Christians reversed New England's equality march and gathered sufficient signatures to force the governor of Maine to suspend gay marriage in that state until voters have a chance to Prop 8 equality.  (I'm using "Prop 8" as a verb.)

As you likely read, something similar happened in Washington state, pulling a Prop 8 on that state's Domestic Partnership laws. 

In both cases the campaign to criminalize or "demote" gay relationships was funded and organized by the same national Christian Republican group that waged the successful Prop 8 campaign in California.

(In the meantime, our national gay advocacy groups--HRC in particular-are still recovering from their victory celebration hangovers.)

The Gibbon's case involves a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State challenging government funding of a religious group’s youth home in Kentucky.

At the heart of this case, Kentucky is using taxpayer money to fund a chain of Baptist Children's shelters that preach Evangelical Christianity to children who are under state care.  (And we are accused of recruitment?)

“This Baptist agency has made no secret of the fact that it was evangelizing children under the state’s care in complete disregard of the Constitution’s ban on government-sponsored religion,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United.

“We’re extremely pleased that the court has made it clear that taxpayers have the right to challenge government when it promotes religious doctrine.”

The lawsuit was brought on behalf of several taxpayers and Alicia Pedreira, a lesbian who was fired from the group home after someone at the agency saw a photograph of Pedreira and her partner at the state fair.

In addition to the constitutional challenge, Pedreira had also claimed that the agency illegally discriminated against her because she did not conform to the religious beliefs of the agency.   Pedreira and the ACLU harbored the bizarre notion that government funded organizations could not discriminate.  That might have been true if Pedreira had sued as a Jew, but she foolishly sued as a homosexual.

Although the appeals court dismissed Pedreira's claim, the court said that she would be allowed to present evidence of her firing to prove that the funding of the agency violated the Constitution’s prohibition of religious funding.

“While I’m disappointed that Baptist Homes won’t be held liable for firing me, today’s decision helps ensure that government funds won’t be given to employers who discriminate based on their religious beliefs about sexual orientation, and that’s why I brought this case,” said Pedreira.

Pedreira may be gay but she's still a Kentuckian.  (Yup, I just made an IQ joke about Southerners.)  Pedreira seems oblivious to the fact that the Obama administration is pouring hundreds of millions  of taxpayer dollars into Christian-run social service organizations that openly refuse employment and services to gay men and women from Bangor to San Diego.

“The government should be helping to end discrimination against gay people, not funding it,” said Ken Choe, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project. “While today’s decision gives taxpayers recourse when the government oversteps the line in funding religiously affiliated service providers, this case illustrates all too well what can go wrong when the government fails to ensure appropriate safeguards.”

Added Americans United Senior Litigation Counsel Alex J. Luchenitser, who argued the appeal before the court, “This decision puts the brakes on the Religious Right’s efforts to keep taxpayers out of court in order to allow unfettered public funding of religious indoctrination. Proselytizing groups should not be able to get away with using government money illegally because they think that no one can sue them.”

The court noted that reviews conducted by a private company of Baptist Homes “contain 296 interview responses from youth describing [Baptist Homes’] religious practices as coercive.” The court also quoted a Baptist Homes annual report as stating, “The angels rejoiced last year as 244 of our children made decisions about their relationships with Jesus Christ.”

In 1998, Alicia M. Pedreira was working for the Spring Meadows Children's Home in Mount Washington, Ky, which is run by Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children, Inc. She was dismissed after her employers discovered a photograph of her with her female partner at an AIDS fundraiser. The reason they gave for letting her go was that her homosexual lifestyle was contrary to the "core values" of their Christian organization.

Pedreira sued Kentucky Baptist. Julia Vance, a social worker, who is also a lesbian, joined the complaint along with a number of other tax-payers.

Pedreira's lawsuit against Kentucky Baptist was later combined with another action alleging violation of the separation of church and state by teaching religion in facilities that receive over $100 million a year in state subsidies.

Both complaints were dismissed by the state district court and appeals were then filed with the US Court of Appeals for the 6th District (which covers Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee). The court reversed the dismissal of the church and state portion of the complaint and sent the nearly 10-year old lawsuit back to the district court for action. The dismissal of Pedreira's portion of the suit though, was upheld by the 6th District Court.

The 6th circuit affirmed dismissal of the employment discrimination lawsuit, ruling that neither Pedreira nor Vance was able to show that they were fired (or not hired) for religious reasons. "It is undisputed that [Kentucky Baptist] fired Pedreira on account of her sexuality," Judge Julia Smith Gibbons wrote.

And they have every right to do so.

"However, Pedreira has not explained how this constitutes discrimination based on religion.  Pedreira has not alleged any particulars about her religion that would even allow an inference that she was discriminated against on account of her religion, or more particularly, her religious differences with [Kentucky Baptist]." Further, Pedeira never argued that her sexual orientation is "premised on her religious beliefs, or lack thereof, nor does she state whether she accepts or rejects Baptist beliefs."

Comments

[Billy]

Defective original complaint, should of included religious persecution. She was fired because she didn’t believe the exact same way as the organization.

[Andrew]

"The unavoidable and profoundly disturbing question that continues to haunt me is whether our increasingly bipolar nation can survive as a democracy."

Honestly, I don't think so, all pessimism aside, there are too many groups big & small vying for control. Everyone wants control in their own way especially when they don't agree with current affairs.

The town hall meetings are a good example.

[Alan down in Florida]

I'm confused - it is OK for her to be fired for being a homosexual which is no longer, in and of itself illegal in America. And the reason she was fired was because the employer's religious beliefs doesn't approve of homosexuality? How stupid does one have to be to not connect the dots and come to the conclusion that her "violation" of the employer's beliefs is termination on religious grounds?

Where was Lambda Legal while all of this has been going on for the past decade? And can this ruling be further appealed at a higher level?

[Richard Jeffrey Rothstein]

We're dealing with George W. Bush judicial logic here.