Texas Judge Rules Businesses Can Fire LGBTQ Workers Over Religious Beliefs

Fresh off last year’s Bostock v. Clayton Co. ruling—which deemed it is illegal to fire someone or deny them employment for being LGBTQ under the 1964 Civil Rights Act—a federal, Texas judge just ruled that businesses saying they are religious and churches can fire LGBTQ people after all.

The case was brought to the court by long-time anti-LGBTQ activist Stephen Hotze’s management firm, Braidwood Management Inc., which he said is a Christian firm.

The lawsuit states that Hotze, “does not allow Braidwood to hire or employ individuals who are known to engage in sexually immoral behavior or gender non-conforming conduct of any sort, including homosexuality, cross-dressing, and transgenderism.”

The firm sued the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) for enforcing the 2020 ruling, saying that Bostock violates the firm’s “Sincere and deeply held religious beliefs,” even though Braidwood is a management firm and not a religious institution.

Read O’Connor was the Texas judge on the case and a known anti-LGBTQ extremist, who, not surprisingly, ruled in Braidwood’s favor. He ruled that the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act (RFRA) and the First Amendment both require the government to provide a religious exemption to anti-discrimination law.

He also said that requiring a Christian business like Braidwood to hire LGBTQ people would be a substantial burden on the business’s ability to practice its religion and that there is no compelling government interest in requiring Braidwood to do so.

Oh, it keeps going.

O’Connor ruled that any business is allowed “to regulate the sexual conduct of their employees … including sodomy, premarital sex, adultery, and any other kind of sexual activity that occurs outside the context of a marriage between a man and a woman,” so long as such a policy “applies evenly to heterosexual and homosexual sexual activity.”

He finally ruled that all employers can set dress codes and restroom usage according to assigned sex at birth instead of gender, even though one of Bostock‘s plaintiffs was trans and explicitly brought up this issue in that case.

As far as how to determine if a business qualifies for the exemption, O’Connor said the only way is to assess if their “asserted religious belief” seems like “an honest conviction.”

O’Connor ruled earlier this year that a Catholic hospital doesn’t have to follow anti-discrimination laws under the healthcare provision because of the chance they would need to provide gender-affirming care to a trans person, even if the procedure is not one the hospital objects to.

It’s just one of many anti-LGBTQ moves he’s made in power, blocking federal benefits for workers married to people of the same gender in 2015.

That same year, Hotze led a speaking tour in Texas to denounce “homofascists,” whom, he says, “were enabled and appeased by those who treated their behavior as normal or acceptable. The indoctrination started in public schools, by design. Remember: Homosexuals can’t reproduce. They have to recruit.”

It’s a stark reminder that the U.S. still has plenty of O’Connor’s in power—and plenty of Hotze’s who will seek the same, hateful opinions in leaders for their own gain—adamantly using their personal convictions to strip LGBTQ people of equal rights and protections.