Posted on 08/19/2016 2:58:15 PM PDT by Morgana
DETROIT (ChurchMilitant.com) - The push for transgender acceptance is making its way to funeral homes, as a transgender funeral director is taking a Christian-run business to court for refusing to accept his charade as a female.
According to arguments heard August 11 by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Anthony Stephens, who now goes by the name Aimee Stephens, was denied the "right" to dress as a woman while at work after coming out as transgender in 2013. Stephens reports he provided his employer, RG & GR Funeral Homes in Detroit, with a letter outlining his plans to undergo a "gender transition" and to inform the business he would begin appearing as a female. In response, Stephens was let go from his position two weeks later.
Lawyers from the Christian conservative Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), currently representing Thomas Rost, president and owner the funeral home, maintain the small business owner is a "devout Christian" and that his faith "informs the way he operates his business and how he presents his business to the public." The gender-specific dress code, the ADF representatives continued, is to insure families are respected in their time of mourning.
The lawsuit, initially filed in September 2014 by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), with an amended version refiled in June 2015, argues Harris Funeral Homes violated "Title VII by firing an employee because [he] is transgender and did not conform to the employer's gender-based expectations, preferences, or stereotypes." Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbids workplace discrimination based on race, religion, color, sex or national origin.
"We are trying to achieve a workplace free of sexual discrimination," EEOC attorney Dale R. Price, Jr. told the court. "We must enforce Title VII. We have evidence of sex-based stereotypes in this case."
The EEOC, joined by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan in an amicus brief, is seeking either the restoration of Stephens' job and the accommodation of "gender transition," or monetary compensation for alleged damages inflicted.
ADF lawyers maintain, however, that the dress code enforced at Rost's establishments is "industry standard" and "legitimate."
The policy, ADF legal counsel Douglas Wardlow maintains, "reflects the somber and solemn nature of what's going on in the funeral home" and simply asks that "men and women dress as men and women."
In addition to being the industry norm, the dress code also reflects Rost's own "religious beliefs about human sexuality," including the tenet "that one's sex, male or female, has God-given gifts and it should not be changed and cannot be changed."
U.S. District Judge Sean Cox, a Pres. George W. Bush appointee, is expected to rule this month on the case.
The Catholic Church has clearly maintained Her position against the push for gender identity rights, with Pope Benedict XVI declaring in 2012, "The profound falsehood of this theory and of the anthropological revolution contained within it is obvious." Likewise, Pope Francis has denounced transgender ideology, decrying the "ideological colonization" being forced on children.
Sounds more like Jihad to me.
Do you want them handling your loved ones?
This is difficult enough not to have to deal with these issues. I’m still reeling from the funeral director at my mom’s wake who kissed me on the cheek! I had only met him a week before and he was no friend of mine. Bad taste and American funerals go back to Evelyn Waugh, I guess.
I have nothing to add because it’ll just be a snarky comment, but...other than that, I love your posts. Thanks.
Sounds more like people in a Romans 1:18-32 condition.
Positions with public relations aspects are different from hiring some person to mop the floors.
It’s sad that (assuming the person cannot be utterly insulated from public relations contact) someone has to be so selfish as to not recognize this. One could be more accommodating to the floor mopper.
And now that you’ve condemned them, then what?
People in mourning don’t want to attend a costume party.
The funeral home won:
If this trend keeps up, maybe the secular screamers might not even be able to make Christians bake the cakes any more. And that’s “Staggering.”
Well as they say, each push has a push back. Pervs did not know how to leave well enough alone.
The GAYSTAPO at it again.
Looks like the religious aspect of the funeral home’s business was honored.
And this really makes sense. If a funeral home wanted to advertise itself as rah rah secular, we give you a grand sendoff to nowhere, then it would have a harder time making this kind of objection stick.
Yes — a positive sign that the court took this into account.
It happened. I think he was trying to show sympathy. I’m always reluctant to get into it when men overstep their boundaries. Which has caused problems for me in the past. Yes, I think people must be a little strange to get into this line of business. Unfortunately, they do amazing work - taking it out of the hands of grieved families - and tying up the paper work and burial arrangements in neat little bundles.
Frankly, your post was a rather lazy response.
Observing what seems to be people’s condition that they have brought on themselves is not me condemning them.
And yet, “religion” shouldn’t presume to be standing on its own in this world. It’s about God and the ministry of God and about the everlasting.
It may not happen this year or even this century, but sooner or later the whole world will be united in snubbing people who believe in God. And we can’t wail to the world when this happens. We have to hide in God and look to His provision and His plan.
Let me ask, rather, why you observed so.
This, therefore what? Without a reason, egotism sticks up its ugly head as a default. Which we all must avoid.
If he’s now a “she,” he clearly isn’t the same person they hired. So, there is no case. Just refuse to hire the “woman.”
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