The Supreme Court recently reversed California’s discriminatory ban on indoor worship in a case brought by two churches against Governor Gavin Newsom. The churches claimed the state’s extreme prohibitions on all indoor religious services discriminated against religious institutions while permitting other large indoor venues to open, like Hollywood soundstages and large, nonessential department stores.
In its recent Bostock v. Clayton County decision, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in employment also prohibits discrimination on the bases of sexual orientation and gender identity. The decision concerns only secular employers, however. The Court stressed that the religious staffing decisions of faith-based employers have constitutional and statutory protections, but it did not detail how those protections will continue to operate.
In this article, IRFA Founder and Senior Director Stanley Carlson-Thies says that it is now even more important that faith-based employers, for legal as well as mission reasons, clearly show how their religious staffing decisions are rooted in their respective organizations' religious mission and doctrine. And he calls upon Congress to pass the Fairness for All Act, which would provide greater clarity about how LGBT employment rights and the religious freedom of faith-based employers are simultaneously to be protected.
