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Hobby Lobby Fined $220,000 for Requiring Transgender
Woman to Use Unisex Restroom
Michael Foust |
ChristianHeadlines.com Contributor |
Monday, August 16, 2021
Hobby Lobby violated an Illinois anti-discrimination law when it prohibited a biological male employee who identifies as female from using the women’s restroom, an appeals court ruled Friday.
The unanimous decision by a three-judge state appeals court panel upheld a ruling by the state’s Human Rights Commission, which had fined Hobby Lobby $220,000 and ruled the company violated the Illinois Human Rights Act when its East Aurora, Ill., store prohibited Meggan Sommerville – a transgender woman – from using the women’s restroom. The store instead allowed her to use a unisex restroom.
The $220,000 was to cover Sommerville’s emotional distress and attorney’s fees.
Somerville was hired in 1998 and began transitioning in 2007, wearing female clothes and undergoing medical treatment.
The Illinois Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on gender identity in employment and public accommodations.
“Hobby Lobby’s conduct ... falls squarely within the definition of unlawful discrimination under the Act, as it treats Sommerville differently from all other women who work or shop at its store, solely on the basis that her gender identity is not ‘traditionally associated with’ her ‘designated sex at birth,’” the court ruled. “The Commission did not err in finding that Hobby Lobby’s conduct of denying Sommerville access to its women’s bathroom violated her civil rights under articles 2 and 5 of the Act.”
Hobby Lobby, a company founded by a Christian family, asserted that an individual’s sex cannot be changed. The court, though, disagreed.
The store installed a unisex restroom for Sommerville and others to use. But the court ruled Sommerville should nevertheless be able to use the women’s restroom – even if access to a unisex restroom was available.
“Hobby Lobby’s provision of a unisex bathroom available to all employees and customers cannot cure its unequal treatment of Sommerville with respect to the women’s bathroom,” the court ruled. “If every employee and customer except Sommerville may use either the unisex bathroom or the bathroom corresponding to their sex, but Sommerville’s choices are limited to the unisex bathroom or a bathroom that does not correspond to her sex, Hobby Lobby is still discriminating unlawfully.”
So, what about females who don't want a person with male genitalia in their washroom? Have they no rights? Are they being treated fairly? I don't think so.
This ruling will almost certainly make it a lot harder for some trans people to get a job.
The court upheld the decision and fines by the Human Rights Commission. It also remanded the case to the commission to determine “additional damages and attorney fees that may be due.”
Good grief! What madness!
Polish regional council votes to retain ‘LGBT free’ stance
despite risk of €2.5 Billion EU funding loss
19 Aug, 2021 19:58
A Polish regional assembly has decided against revoking a 2019 decision promoting ‘LGBT-free zones’ in spite of receiving a warning from the European Commision of having more than €2.5 billion cut from EU funding.
On Thursday, the regional council in Poland’s southern Malopolska region voted against an opposition motion to revoke the 2019 resolution, which declared the strongly Catholic area as being free from ‘LGBT ideology’. The measure banned the promotion of homosexuality and other minority sexual identities in public spaces such as schools.
Votes from representatives of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party were key in ensuring that the LGBT-free zoning legislation was not revoked, according to local reports.
The local authority received a letter from the EU this summer over the designation. According to the Polish council, the missive warned that the region could lose more than €2.5 billion of EU funding if it did not revoke the motion.
Last month, the Commission said in a statement that it had “decided to send a letter of formal notice to Poland for its lack of cooperation” with the EU executive by failing to provide requested information about the adoption of such resolutions by “several Polish municipalities.”
“The Commission is concerned that these declarations may violate EU law regarding non-discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation,” it added. “It is therefore necessary to carry out a detailed analysis of the compatibility of the resolutions with EU law. In order to complete this assessment, the Commission needs adequate and comprehensive information from the Polish authorities.”
The result of Thursday’s vote in Malopolska was heavily criticized by Polish MEP Robert Biedron for "throwing €2.5 billion down the drain".
“Once again, the hatred and anger of PiS turned out to be more important than the good of citizens, and they will suffer the most from this decision,” he said in a tweet.
Jan Duda — father of current Polish president Andrzej Duda and leader of the southern Malopolska regional council — suggested that rather than revoke the motion, it needs to be rewritten. “We cannot simply deny what was said in 2019,” Dude commented, adding: “We need to meet and rewrite this declaration, as the one from 2019 has been misunderstood.”
Some Polish conservatives have said that the LGBT-free zones are not discriminatory against gay people, but rather against ‘LBGT ideology’.
LGBT rights have been the center of an ongoing row between Poland and the EU. Earlier this year, the European Parliament declared the whole of the European Union an ‘LGBT Freedom Zone’, partly in response to the Polish designations.
Facebook apps responsible for nearly 50% of all online
child grooming cases during UK lockdown in 2020
24 Aug, 2021 11:00
FILE PHOTO. © Getty Images / Tomohiro Ohsumi; (inset) © Getty Images / Carl Court
Facebook has been accused by a UK child protection watchdog of fuelling a spike in online grooming of children during the pandemic – with “risky design features” in Instagram and other popular apps being exploited by offenders.
In a new report, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) noted that the various Facebook-owned platforms – including Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger – accounted for nearly half of some 5,441 ‘sexual communication with a child’ offences recorded by police since April 2020.
However, the charity said the actual scale of online grooming was “likely to be higher” as a result of “tech failures” by the social media giant that resulted in a drop in the removal of abuse material during the 12-month period ending in March 2021.
According to data from 42 police forces across England and Wales, Instagram was the most common site used by groomers. It was flagged by police in 32% of the crimes where a platform was identified. Since 2017, the number of cases linked to the picture- and video-sharing site has almost doubled, police data showed.
Meanwhile, Snapchat was the second most flagged platform – linked to a quarter of the cases where a platform was identified. In all, the “big four” of the Facebook apps and Snapchat were responsible for nearly 75% of all cases where the platform used for grooming was known to police.
Noting that “online child abuse is inherently preventable,” NSPCC child safety online policy head Andy Burrows told The Herald newspaper that the high figures were caused by the “inaction of social media firms” and their adoption of a “piecemeal approach ... instead of taking proactive steps to make sure that their sites are safe.”
As an example of the “far easier” ways for offenders to “contact and exploit children,” Burrows noted that groomers are able to simply “refresh the page” on some of the worst-performing platforms to “get a fresh list of children to contact as a result of the site algorithmically recommending them.”
In response, Facebook said it “works quickly to find, remove and report” this “abhorrent behaviour.” It claimed that changes were made earlier this year to “block adults from messaging under-18s they are not connected with” and said it had “introduced technology that makes it harder for potentially suspicious accounts to find young people.”
Although the tech firm said it scans images and videos on Instagram and Facebook to flag exploitative material so that it can be removed, the NSPCC said it had “removed less than half” of the child abuse content it had done previously over the last six months of 2020.
According to Burrows, this meant less “actionable intelligence” was passed to police during the “perfect storm” of a pandemic – at a time when children were online more than ever before. The NSPCC also called on Facebook to ensure its end-to-end encryption tech does not “compromise” child-protection tools.
Despite safety measures announced recently by Facebook, Apple and other firms, the charity said the platforms were “playing catch up” due to “historically poorly designed sites that fail to protect young users” – even though sending sexual messages to children has been a crime since 2015.
It said this showed the importance of the draft Online Safety bill – to be considered by a parliamentary committee next month – that holds “named managers personally liable for design choices that put children at risk.”
Oh! That sounds like fun if you're a lawyer. It's a lifetime, career opportunity.
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