New directive from the Justice Department allows people with religious beliefs to discriminate in business; LGBT ally Steve Rudner plans to use it to make a point

DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
taffet@dallasvoice.com
 
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a directive last week “to do as much as possible to accommodate those who claim their religious freedoms are being violated.” That directive “lifts a burden from religious objectors to prove their beliefs about marriage or other topics are sincerely held.”
Previous wording protecting “religious objectors” included the words “sincerely held” in legal arguments to protect those rights. Now those beliefs don’t have to be so sincere.
Dallas attorney and Equality Texas board chair Steve Rudner has some religious beliefs of his own — sincerely held ones at that.
“My religion tells me we’re all created in God’s image,” Rudner said. “We’re all supposed to love and respect each other. We’re supposed to ‘clothe the naked,’ so I believe in a living wage. We’re supposed to respect whatever religion your employees are, so I give them the day off for their holidays.”
So with such deeply-held religious beliefs, and encouraged by the U.S. attorney general’s new directive to accommodate people like himself who claim their religious beliefs are being violated, he’s sending a questionnaire to his vendors and suppliers to find out just where they stand on certain issues.
Because Rudner’s religion simply won’t allow him to do business with people who discriminate against LGBT people, the disabled, immigrants or people of certain religions or races.
Rudner Law Offices represents luxury hotels around the world. As he points out, no industry is perfect, but the hospitality industry has a great record. Without their LGBT employees, he said, there wouldn’t be a hospitality industry.
To serve the hotels he represents, Rudner said his vendors include everything from printers to insurance agents and insurance companies, the phone company, process servers, runners and legal research firms — “Everyone I write a check to.”
Rudner said he may be doing business with lots of wonderful people or he may be doing business with a number of bigots. Either way, he wants to know.
He needs to know.
His religious belief is that ignorance just isn’t an excuse, especially when you’re in a position to do something about it.
Rudner said his religious beliefs — and they are most definitely sincerely held — require him to know these vendors’ policies. So he sent out his letters, and “I expect answers.”
And if he doesn’t get those answers, he’ll be looking for new vendors. “I’d love to have someone find that objectionable and do something about it,” he said.
And he’d be happy to have a discussion with anyone with religious beliefs that prevent them from doing business with entire groups of people and have that discussion with them — either inside a courtroom or out.
Equality Texas CEO Chuck Smith says he’s happy to see his board president standing up for equal treatment of everyone.
“Businesses open to the public should serve everyone on the same terms,” Smith said. Sessions’ directive, he said, is “discrimination hiding behind religion.”
Smith disagrees with Sessions’ interpretation of religious freedom as stated in the U.S. Constitution. Smith said he believes religious freedom allows anyone to worship freely or not at all. But what the Constitution doesn’t do, he added, is allow someone to use their own religious beliefs against someone else.
“That’s discrimination, not religious freedom,” Smith said.
Smith stressed that the issue is not about wedding cakes even though that argument has grabbed headlines. It’s about life and death situations. He said Texas failed to pass legislation that would allow discrimination, but right-wing lawmakers certainly tried.
Opponents of Sessions’ directive say it could have disastrous consequences. For instance, if first responders are allowed to deny service based on their religious beliefs, firefighters might not extinguish a fire if the homeowner is an LGBT person. Or perhaps a doctor, counselor or emergency medical tech might endanger someone’s life by refusing to treat an LGBT person.
A bill that did pass during this year’s session of the Texas Legislature and was signed into law allows adoption agencies to discriminate based on sexual orientation and receive state funding while discriminating. Thanks to that, opponents say, LGBT minors in the foster system could be passed over for adoption or fostering by those agencies, putting those kids at higher risk for homelessness, abuse or neglect than the population in general.
Thankfully, several discriminatory bills fell short, including one specifically related to wedding celebrations. Had this bill passed, facilities wouldn’t have to rent to same-sex couples. Wedding planners, bakers, caterers, photographers, videographers, disc jockeys, decorators and others providing goods or services for a wedding would have been able to refuse service based on their religious beliefs.
But other bills filed in this year’s legislature aimed to do so much more than attempt to turn joyous weddings into heartache.
Another failed bill would have allowed health care facilities and individual providers to deny treatment based on “a sincerely held set of moral convictions.” Had the bill passed, Sessions’ directive would have lowered the bar from there.
The bill even protected health care facilities and providers from litigation even if failure to treat resulted in death or permanent disability of a patient. “A physician or health care provider may not be held civilly or criminally liable solely because of the physician’s or healthcare provider’s conscientious refusal of a health care service,” the bill said in its final wording.
Not providing service could extend to pharmacists. Larger drug store chains offer religious accommodation to employees with religious objections to providing certain drugs, especially related to birth control. Smith said his objections don’t apply to this sort of religious accommodation.
In small towns where there might only be one pharmacist, however, religious exemption could extend to refusing to provide HIV medications that are required to prevent AIDS from developing.
Smith said religious freedom laws are still in play. He called it the “next frontier in the battle to allow discrimination.”
He said with directives like this, Sessions could create a sectarian divide in this country, and the divide is growing deeper. But Rudner hopes that his response will open some eyes and stop the divide.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition October 13, 2017.