Homeless Shelter Sues State Officials Preventing It from Hiring Christian Employees

by Kate Anderson

 

A Christian homeless shelter filed a lawsuit against Washington state officials Thursday alleging that the state’s anti-discrimination law prevents the shelter from only hiring employees that agree with their faith-based worldview.

Yakima Union Gospel Mission (YUGM) in Yakima, Washington, describes its mission as “helping people move from homelessness to wholeness” on its website and has been working in the community for 35 years, according to a press release by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the world’s largest law firm representing faith and free speech issues. The shelter explains in the lawsuit that the defendants, Attorney General Robert Ferguson and Executive Director of the Washington State Human Rights Commission Andreta Armstrong, have been using Washington’s anti-discrimination law to prevent the organization from hiring in line with their faith, according to the lawsuit.

“The Mission’s Christian religious beliefs are the foundation for its existence and are the very reason it serves the homeless, hungry, and hurting,” the lawsuit reads. “The Mission serves everybody equally, yet it furthers its religious purpose by maintaining an internal body of coreligionists: like-minded believers who agree with and live out the Mission’s Christian beliefs and practices. But the Washington Law Against Discrimination (“the WLAD”) prohibits sexual orientation discrimination in employment, and Defendants view the Mission’s Christian behavior requirement on marriage and sexuality as unlawful sexual orientation discrimination under the WLAD.”

YUGM’s CEO Mike Johnson told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the shelter’s employees are “the hands, feet and messengers of our faith in Christ.”

“But Washington state officials are threatening our right to hire people who share the Mission’s beliefs and live them out,” Johnson said. “As a religious organization, we have the freedom to hire people who believe in our mission and share the same beliefs.”

Ferguson, in particular, has been actively enforcing the law by investigating Seattle Pacific University for alleged discrimination against the LGBTQ community after the university declared that it would require its employees to adhere to biblical standards.

ADF Senior Counsel and Director of the ADF Center for Christian Ministries Ryan Tucker told the DCNF that religious businesses’ right to hire in line with their faith is protected under the First Amendment.

“Government officials have been increasingly bold in their discrimination against religious people and organizations,” Tucker said. “Yakima Union Gospel Mission and others are only asking for the same freedom as everybody else: to live and work according to their religious beliefs.”

Ferguson and Armstrong did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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Kate Anderson is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Yakima Union Gospel Mission” by Yakima Union Gospel Mission.

 

 

 


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5 Thoughts to “Homeless Shelter Sues State Officials Preventing It from Hiring Christian Employees”

  1. Tim S

    Using religion to discriminate is as old as religion itself. This article proves that such discrimination is alive and well. Masking discrimination as ‘religious beliefs’ doesn’t fool anyone. If you want to truly help people, it shouldn’t matter if those offering aid are religious or not, follow your beliefs or their own. Drop the fake indignation, stop pretending this isn’t a religious recruitment tool being used against some of our most vulnerable, and accept that not everyone thinks like you do.

  2. Thomas Milton

    What a freaking bunch of religious zealots… They rape the community for every dollar they can … And have for 35 years.. under the cloak of”Christianity”… And helping the ” homeless”…..
    I had an experience last March., With union gospel mission, in Spokane Washington… My vehicle had broken down, and my debit card was locked as I was traveling out of state .. I had to go to this SHELTER , HERE in Spokane… I had three hundred dollars in my Carhartt coat pocket.. this money was to pay the shop working on my vehicle… It was all I had in the world… Upon being allowed to stay THE NIGHT THERE .. I WAS FORCED TO SHOWRE WHILE THERE SELECTED SEXUALLY CONFUSED REPRESENTATIVES…. WATCHED… YHEN.. I WAS FORCED TO SURRENDER ALL MY PERSONAL BELONGUNGS… WHICH WERE PLACED IN A COAT ROOM .. I WAS GIVEN THE SHELTERS PAJAMAS TO WEAR… UPON WAKING I WENT IMMEDIATELY TO RETRIEVE MY BELONGINGS …AND GUESS WHAT .. THEY HAD MY COAT IN THE OFFICE… BECAUSE SOMEONE SMELLLED MARIJUANA IN IT… NO SIR.. THEY WENT THROUGH MY COAT , TOOK THE THEEE HUNDRED DOLLARS FROM THE POCKET AND PLACED ONE MARIJUANA CIGARETTE IN THE POCKET.. THEN TO COVER QHAT THEY HAD SONE RHEY TOLD THEM I HAD WEED….. THEY MADE ME LEAVE .. AND NEVER REPLACED MY PROPERTY TO THIS DAY… I WOUND UP STAYING IN SPOKANE, AND LET ME TELL YOU ALL I SEE ARE PEOPLE LIKE THESE, EHO DONT DO MUCH TO HRLP THE HOMELESS … BIT BOY DO THEY EXPLOIT THE PROBLEM.. ALL I.N JESUS NAME.. I PRAY THEY ARE PUT OUT OF BUSINESS..

  3. TF

    “Yakima Union Gospel Mission and others are only asking for the same freedom as everybody else: to live and work according to their religious beliefs.”
    Liberals Democrats have no respect for the beliefs of others they want everyone living according to their corrupt lifestyle. Time for conservatives to group together and fight this “our way or else” garbage.

    1. Tim S

      You have no idea what you are talking about. Far-right-wingers like yourself see ONE way to live, and those who do not follow it are ‘corrupt’. I’m a ‘liberal democrat’ and I respect everyone’s right to their religious beliefs, but shoving them down the throats of our most vulnerable isn’t ‘doing god’s work’ – it’s brain-washing and indoctrination. If I as an atheist am willing to stand beside you as a Christian to help those in need, what should it matter whether I believe the same things you do? Are you really wanting to help people – or are you more interested in recruiting for your religious cult?

    2. Pat Long

      So the rest of us lower forms of life are not fit to help the homeless? If the religion they were favoring followed Islam, would your indignation still be there?

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