Evangelicals Sue For The Right To Deny Shelter To Transgender Homeless People
JakeThomas
The same far-right evangelical group that fought for the right of a baker to deny service to gay couples is now looking to targeting transgender people in Alaska, according to LGBTQ Nation.
Alliance Defending Freedom is suing the city of Anchorage in federal court, hoping to overturn city’s nondiscrimination ordinance protecting LGBTQ people — primarily so a homeless shelter can deny help to transgender people.
ADF attorney Ryan Tucker told the court that many of the shelter’s residents are survivors of domestic violence and “they would rather sleep in the woods” in the frigid Alaskan winter than share space with a transgender woman. Temperatures in the city in the past week have hovered around zero degrees Fahrenheit.
Hope Center, a Christian nonprofit that operates the shelter for homeless women, turned away a transgender woman twice in January. While the facility had cause to turn her away (she showed up drunk once and after hours the second time), they couldn’t resist taking a jab at LGBTQ people.
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The group is asking the judge to stop the city from enforcing the nondiscrimination law, arguing that, as a homeless shelter, the group should have an exemption from the law and, as a charity, it should have the religious freedom to deny access as they see fit.
