Posted on 11/30/2018 6:18:32 PM PST by marshmallow
AUSTIN, Texas, November 29, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Churches have no right to insist on employees that accept and practice their faith’s teachings on homosexuality, according to Austin officials defending an “anti-discrimination” ordinance currently being challenged by two socially conservative groups.
The local ordinance guarantees “the opportunity for each person to obtain employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, or disability.”
It contains an exception for “an employer to hire and employ employees” if one’s sexual orientation or gender identity is a “bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary for the normal operation of a particular business or enterprise,” as well as religious entities’ right to “hire and employ individuals of a particular religion.” But it doesn’t expressly state that a church’s beliefs about such issues qualify.
In a federal lawsuit filed against the city, the Houston-based U.S. Pastor Council argues that the lack of clear exemptions threatens to force 25 churches it’s representing to accept homosexual or gender-confused individuals even as clergy, as well as restricts their right to maintain longstanding restrictions on female clergy.
The group Texas Values has also filed a lawsuit challenging the ordinance purely under state law, arguing more broadly for the rights of “nonprofits or closely held corporations who would be compelled” to “act in a manner contrary to their sincerely held religious beliefs.” As examples it cites nonprofits such as themselves who exist to advance specific beliefs, or religious landlords who may “require their tenants to refrain from non-marital sex or homosexual behavior when renting their property,”
(Excerpt) Read more at lifesitenews.com ...
Values? Sheit!
Incredible. But they won’t enforce such rules with the Muslims, Oh No!
I predict a few breakaway religious groups will form. Some will tire of trying to reason with the PC-hypnotized.
Most the PC acolytes cannot be snapped out of their trance of compliance, except maybe, maybe over time. They are logic resistant.
And the Austin City Council has no business telling churches what they can and cannot do. To hell with them.
The city of Austin deserves to be sued into oblivion.
Too many on the Left seem to think of freedom in terms that rise no higher than someone’s crotch. If directly (their own) of by proxy because they’ve been convinced that sexual misadventures and perversions are civil rights (even as the Left lusts for government to manage put near everything in life that isn’t sex related) these act accordingly.
I’m really disappointed that “Americans” continue to put up with this crap without the equivalent of the “tar and feathers” retribution at the very minimum!
...and you conservatives that that gays would simply ‘go away’ if we just gave them gay marriage.
Anyway, hopefully our side learns a VERY VALUABLE LESSON here as the Left, of course, will soon be going after our guns.
The government sure seems to attack and breach the wall between church and state they regularly blab on about.
We need two walls. One on the border and the other around Austin.
That may prove prophetic.....
It’s prov n extremely difficult to raise humanity above that level, at least to include / incorporate some additional “higher” values. The believing Jews and Christians have sought to facilitate/ enable this for centuries. So far, the progress at teaching or encouraging or just demonstrating this kind of free- will, voluntary development has been , well, limited - and with frequent collapses / regressions. The extreme dnc - leftists/ commies/ etc have repeatedly shown the futility of trying to force it on people, too.
That is apparently still legal. Which is what the churches should be doing in the first place.
Still should work to vote out all members of the board and get this ordinance reascended because it is a first amendment violation. Violates the right to peaceably assemble with those whom you wish to assemble and violates the "free exercise" clause.
Scotus asap...of course Roberts may be both sides of the fence...
This is the hill to die on. This would be worth it.
They will be sued, and the City of Austin will lose.
Next they will be forcing churches to worship Satan.
It just hit me — the flaw in the Austin City Council’s logic. They fear that a few examples of someone refusing to accommodate LGBT folks means that no one will accommodate them. That is false.
The LGBT folks can find others that will accommodate them. They are not shut out. There are plenty of heterosexual individuals and businesses that don’t care about a person’s sexual orientation.
Are some discriminating against LGBTs? So what? On the other hand, there are important reasons why some people don’t like homosexuality. They should not be forced to do things they don’t believe in. Forcing them doesn’t make our society better.
Sometimes a donut hole looks just like a poop ball.
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