lgbt rights vs religious freedom

[dreamcatcher]

Firing of Macy's worker pits freedom of religion vs. GLBT rights - San Antonio Express-News

A former Macy's employee who said she was fired for refusing to let a transgender woman use the women's dressing room at the Rivercenter mall location is trying to get her job back.
The case, pitting freedom of religion in the workplace vs. corporations' growing acceptance for the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, has attracted national attention.
Natalie Johnson said that on Nov. 30, she confronted the customer leaving the women's fitting room and politely made clear no men were allowed.
Johnson said the customer wore makeup and dressed in women's clothes but was recognizably a man.
The customer argued she was a woman, but Johnson said she held her ground.
She said a manager called her in the next day.
Johnson said the manager told her transgender people are free to select which fitting room to use. She replied that the policy was against her religious convictions.
“I had to either comply with Macy's or comply with God,” said Johnson, 27, a student at San Antonio College and member of Tabernacle of Prayer, a nondenominational church on the Southwest Side.
The customer's identity has not been revealed.
A spokeswoman from Macy's headquarters in Cincinnati said Wednesday in an email that “we recognize and appreciate the diversity of our customers and associates,” but that the company doesn't comment on personnel matters.
Chuck Smith, deputy executive director of Equality Texas, an Austin-based nonprofit that opposes gender discrimination, said it's an issue of fairness.
“Transgender people exist and buy clothes and shop and should be treated with the same accommodations as any other person,” he said. “A transsexual woman is a woman. And if the employee's religious beliefs keep her from carrying out her functions on the job, then she should find another job.”
But Johnson wanted to keep her job, and took her case to the Liberty Counsel, a conservative Christian law firm that advocates for religious freedoms.
The firm helped her file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, saying her Christian faith and concerns for safety and privacy in a changing room were ignored.
Matt Staver, the firm's founder and chairman, said Johnson wants her job back and to reform or do away with Macy's policy. A third fitting room to avoid this problem also would help, he said.
“This policy is fraught with problems because it opens up the fitting room for anyone to come in, and employees are not permitted to question it,” Staver said. “To me, it's a liability waiting to happen. It's just a matter of time that a man goes into a female fitting room and watches women undress or, even worse, rapes a woman.”
In May 2010, a transgender employee at a Macy's store in Torrance, Calif., sued the company, accusing it of gender discrimination and wrongful termination.
But since 2007, Macy's has received the top rating of 100 percent in the Human Rights Campaign's evaluation of corporation's treatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
In the Rivercenter mall incident, Staver and Johnson said the customer was accompanied by five friends who responded to her objections with expletives. They reminded her of Macy's GLBT-friendly policy, including the use of fitting rooms.
Johnson said she responded that the store also protects her practice of religion, including her right not to ignore what she sees as a person's true gender or to condone homosexuality.
They requested to speak with a manager.
Staver said that when Johnson met with her manager the next day, she asked if Macy's had a policy protecting religious beliefs. She was let go by the end of the meeting, he said.
She said being fired during the holiday season was particularly deflating, but she's relieved her conscience is clean.
“Obviously, (Macy's) policy is not equal, because I was fired for standing up for what I believe in,” Johnson said. “I couldn't lie and say that he was a woman. I'm going to be accountable to what I say to my Lord Jesus. And I'm taking up for my female customers who might feel uncomfortable with a man in the fitting room.”
Johnson's pastor, Bishop Robert Doxie, backed her stand.
“We believe the Bible was right when it says God created men and women,” said Doxie, who said his church is attended by 50 to 100 at an average service. “We stand on that and promote that.”
But a minister at a local GLBT-friendly Christian church said that while it may be tricky to make room for transgender people, it's a matter of justice.
“Transgender people are who God created them to be and are authentically living it out, and that means letting them decide which bathroom or dressing room is best for them,” said the Rev. Mick Hinson of Metropolitan Community Church of San Antonio.
“Macy's is supporting all people. I'm sorry this ex-employee felt this was a religious issue, but if that's the case, she'll have problems in all walks of life where people make decisions she doesn't agree with.”

[thecat06]

Wow... I'm sorry but religion has nothing to do with letting somebody use the dressing rooms. Even if it did, in this economy you want to keep a job right??
It makes me angry, that people use religion to discriminate.

[Hana Solo]

...why is it one or the other? I don't get that.

[Ridiculous]

I hope someone finds my diary in 2000 years time and proceeds to base all of their actions, morals and government on what I wrote without questioning it.

Although I don't have a diary, so I'd better start one.

[mnguy]

"I had to either comply with Macy's or comply with God" Wow, that's just silly. It has nothing to do with her religion. What a crock of shit. Very good quote here, "she'll have problems in all walks of life where people make decisions she doesn't agree with"

[starfish]

Originally Posted by Ridiculous

I hope someone finds my diary in 2000 years time and proceeds to base all of their actions, morals and government on what I wrote without questioning it.

And starfish in his letter to the Westboro Baptist Church wrote "and fuck you and the horse you road in on." It is clear from this letter that God wants us to engage in orgies with animals. To do otherwise in a abomination.

[Emberstone]

She, in being employeed by macy's, is obligated to abide by the rules of the people who sign her checks (or did, before she broke their rules).

Religious freedom constitutionally does not extend past practicing your religion in the privacy of your own life (which does not allow for criminal activities to be called 'religious freedoms', which is a big problem with one church in oregon that has 80+ dead children buried on church grounds because the parents neglected them, saying God does not allow for medical care, as only prayer is allowed. So many children with easily curable illnesses, and were preventable deaths are dead, and the parents keep saying in court that it is their 'religious freedoms', and so the court cannot prosecute them for child abuse and neglect.)

Her religious rantings are irrelevant. She failed to do her job, and was fired for it. She was not fired because she subscribed to anti-jesus beliefs... she was fired because she refuses to follow the rules laid out in the stores policies.

the Liberty Council is a group of assfucktardfaceturdburger facists. They believe liberty is only for certain people, and if you do not fit in with their narrow-minded, anti-constitution, anti-america, anti-christ views, then they will do everything to ensure you do not get your freedoms.

SPLC needs to designate them a hate group, if they have not already. I think they might be covered already because I think they are associated with the AFA and Focus on the Family, which have already earned the hate group designation.

[anatta]

No other minority group's rights are pitted against other people's religious freedom as if they're of equal concern. Not anymore anyway. If a Mormon claimed that their traditional interpretation of Mormonism meant they had to discriminate against black people at work, or a Christian claimed that they were only anti-Semitic because "Jews killed Jesus" the vast majority would not hesitate to fire them and it would get nowhere in the courts. There's also weird verse in the Bible about disabled people not being allowed in the temple, and in Orthodox Judaism women on their period mustn't be touched. I'd like to see these used as justification for discriminating against anyone at work.

[Ke1]

Wat crap! I tried turning 2 d bible & stuff wen i was confused and trying 2 accept my sexuality and I ended up finding stuff dat said "a woman is unclean during her monthly period" it also said stuff lyk "a woman needs 2 be purified after childbirth because she is ritually unclean..."! Seriously?!? WTF! i dont think any woman would agree with all that! i don't get how people still stick to 'organised' religion after reading stuff like this... theism without the religion kinda rocks though...

[Austin]

I didn't know that the male and female dressing rooms were for male or female gender, not sex. I always thought they were by sex not gender. But doesn't that make having male and female dressing rooms a little silly? Anyone could use any of them if they wanted....

Either way idk what following the rules of the company has to do with her religion? Did god say "and thy must never let transgender people useth the dressing room of the gender with which they identify"? I mean it doesn't make sense to base it on religion. She can disagree with transgender people's "lifestyle," but that doesn't mean she can't let them use a dressing room.

[person54]

Stuff like this makes me so nervous. I hope that the trans woman is doing okay. That would have been really hurtful and embarrassing.

[Zontar]

The importance of religious freedom is vastly overstated. Religious freedom never included the right to prostelyze, or otherwise bully others into your beliefs.

Your beliefs dictate that you discriminate? Honestly, tough beans. They're fantasy stories to begin with; indulging in them privately is fine, but my rights begin where yours end.

[seeksanctuary]

"Freedom of religion" does not equal "freedom to be an asshole".

[thecat06]

Originally Posted by seeksanctuary

"Freedom of religion" does not equal "freedom to be an asshole".

Totally agree. Yes, we do have religious freedom in this country, but that does not give you the right to discriminate.

[Hot Pink]

I love how everyone always goes to the protection of women in these situations. Like all trans women are beasts who rape any woman they see in a dressing room or rest room. We're there for the same reason any woman is: to see if something fits or to do our business and leave. As much as these people want to make us out to be unholy demons, we're not. We're only people.

[DhammaGamer]

How humiliating. That person is incredibly ignorant.

[Zontar]

Amazingly, few people want sexuality-segregated bathrooms. By their reasoning, it would make more sense. Throw gay men in with lesbians, neither will give a shit!

Oh, wait, the smell of piss and shit alone is enough to never get me turned on in the restroom. Times have changed; put everyone in the same bathroom like they do in Europe.

[Veronica]

This is a non-case. It has absolutely nothing to do with this woman's right to believe what she wants. It is about her enforcing her beliefs on other people. That is not covered by freedom of religion. Freedom is for everyone, not meant to be used by the majority to oppress the minority.

Any adult should have learned that freedom has to have it's limits. Defined by law. This bigoted and ignorant women should find herself a job elsewhere if she can't do the job properly due to her personal beliefs.

[Mogget]

Originally Posted by Ke1

Wat crap! I tried turning 2 d bible & stuff wen i was confused and trying 2 accept my sexuality and I ended up finding stuff dat said "a woman is unclean during her monthly period" it also said stuff lyk "a woman needs 2 be purified after childbirth because she is ritually unclean..."! Seriously?!? WTF! i dont think any woman would agree with all that! i don't get how people still stick to 'organised' religion after reading stuff like this... theism without the religion kinda rocks though...

Frum (Orthodox) Jews stick to many of the purification laws to this day. Orthodox men will almost never touch a woman, including their wives, in public to avoid the taint of a menstruating woman (theoretically they could touch their wives when they were pure, but that would mean people would tell when their wives were menstruating, which would violate their privacy). Men can also be rendered ritually impure if they come into contact with semen (including their own).

One of the reasons that the Temple can't be rebuilt is that no one can approach the Temple if they are corpse-impure, a state that can be incurred through touching a corpse, crossing the shadow of a coffin, and entering a graveyard among other things. Since the only way to purify people who are corpse-impure is to sprinkle them with the ashes of a perfectly red heifer, and no heifer meeting the exacting standards set by the rabbis after the destruction of the Temple has been found in the past nineteen hundred years, the Temple can't be rebuilt.

[Ridiculous]

Originally Posted by Liam

Frum (Orthodox) Jews stick to many of the purification laws to this day. Orthodox men will almost never touch a woman, including their wives, in public to avoid the taint of a menstruating woman (theoretically they could touch their wives when they were pure, but that would mean people would tell when their wives were menstruating, which would violate their privacy). Men can also be rendered ritually impure if they come into contact with semen (including their own).

One of the reasons that the Temple can't be rebuilt is that no one can approach the Temple if they are corpse-impure, a state that can be incurred through touching a corpse, crossing the shadow of a coffin, and entering a graveyard among other things. Since the only way to purify people who are corpse-impure is to sprinkle them with the ashes of a perfectly red heifer, and no heifer meeting the exacting standards set by the rabbis after the destruction of the Temple has been found in the past nineteen hundred years, the Temple can't be rebuilt.

Now just think how far humanity would have come if 90% of the population didn't waste time on ritualistic practices and artificially limit themselves to satisfy a storybook.

(obligatory "no offense to those of you who are religious")