It was tried again – and failed. State Sen. Greg Razor, a homosexual from a Kansas City district, offered the so-called Missouri Non-discrimination Act (MONA) and once again the Missouri General Assembly rejected it. MONA, similar to the so-called federalized “Equality Act,” would restrict religious freedom, threaten faith-based charities and undermine the civil rights protections for women and girls. It would represent the most dramatic departure from the foundations of civic tolerance that Missourians have ever seen.
The carnage that would lie in its wake if ever passed would be devastating because it would attack the conscience of every citizen who disagrees with the LGBTQ+ agenda. For example, women’s shelters for those escaping domestic abuse or homelessness could be forced to house biological males who identify as women. It disregards the privacy and safety concerns that women rightly have about sharing sleeping quarters and intimate facilities with the opposite sex. This legislation would also harm women’s sports and scholarships as girls would be forced to compete with biological males for limited positions.
MONA threatens the efforts of faith-based adoption and foster care agencies like the Missouri Baptist Children’s Home. It would force faith-based child welfare organizations to either abandon their deeply held religious beliefs or be shut down.
It would also hinder the work of healthcare professionals and faith-based hospitals. While religiously affiliated hospitals routinely serve patients of any background, including those who identify as LGBT, providers who hold moral or religious beliefs cannot perform every procedure a patient requests. For example, doctors and nurses who object to gender reassignment surgeries for moral, religious, or scientific reasons would be forced to provide the procedure or risk losing their jobs. MONA could also force healthcare workers and pro-life healthcare providers to participate in and provide abortions because it would roll back decades of conscience protections that protect pro-life nurses and physicians who object to participating in abortions because of their deeply held religious beliefs. No person should be compelled to participate in an act they believe to be the taking of a human life.
While attempts to pass this unneeded travesty in Missouri will likely persist, the issue continues to work its way through the federal court system. For example, Bear Creek Bible Church and Braidwood Management, a Christian-owned health care business, both in Texas, did not wish to hire or retain employees who engaged in the gay or transgender lifestyle. They sued the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, according to The Heritage Foundation.
Sarah Parshall Perry reports both sought to certify two classes of plaintiffs: (1) every employer in the United States that opposes homosexual or transgender behavior for sincere religious reasons (for example, religious employers), and (2) every employer in the United States that opposes homosexual or transgender behavior for religious or nonreligious reasons (all opposing employers).
They asked the court to rule the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the free exercise clause of the First Amendment, and the right to expressive association under the First Amendment compel, either individually or jointly, exemptions to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County. That case wrongly expanded the coverage of a federal statute — Title VII — which prohibits sex discrimination in employment to include discrimination based on sexual orientation and transgender status. However, a U.S. District Court judge in Texas recently took the opportunity to clarify how the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock will impact religious employers in sex discrimination cases.
Judge Reed O’Connor modified the proposed class of religious employers into two “subclasses”: church-type employers and business-type employers. Noting that Bear Creek Church and members of the church-type employers subclass operate as true religious nonprofits, O’Connor said such employers tend to explicitly state a religious purpose in their organizational documents and carry out their mission through instruction, worship and prayer. Therefore, these types of employers were “religious organizations” when it comes to the religious exemption in Title VII.
O’Connor noted that while some businesses – like Braidwood – incorporated religious values into their business models, they do not qualify as religious institutions for purposes of the religious Title VII exemption. However, he ruled Braidwood was still exempt from Title VII under the First Amendment.
While O’Connor determined that religious nonprofits can escape Title VII liability for firing or refusing to hire LGBTQ employees, he also ruled that both employers could implement sex-specific dress and grooming codes. He also said they could compel employees to use restrooms designated for their biological sex.
O’Connor’s ruling has been appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. It will ultimately impact the course of civil rights laws – like MONA. Let’s pray O’Connor’s decision is upheld.