"First Liberty Institute represents Lacey Smith and Marli Brown," says First Liberty attorney Stephanie Taub. "They were two exceptional flight attendants at Alaska Airlines who were fired after posting comments from their religious perspective on an employee-only network called Alaska's World."
At issue was Alaska Airlines support for the Equality Act, a bill in Congress that critics say would threaten the religious liberty rights of any citizen who dissents from the government's sexual orthodoxy.
The Equality Act originated in 2019 and, though it hasn’t become law, has been passed by two different U.S. Houses.
It defines sex discrimination to include sexual orientation and gender identity as well as pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions and sex-based stereotypes.
David Closson, the director for the Family Research Council’s Center for Biblical Worldview, warned last week that he anticipates quick passage of the Equality Act if Democrats ever again hold the House, Senate and White House.
Even as unpassed legislation the Equality Act carried enough weight with Alaska Airlines for Smith and Brown to lose their jobs and for a lower court to conclude their rights had not been violated.
"Because of those comments they were fired," says Taub. "So, this is a textbook violation of federal civil rights law that prohibits employers from firing their employees because of their religious beliefs."
Taub: lower court erred
A district court dismissed the lawsuit, something Taub says should not have happened.
"The airline disparaged their good faith religious beliefs as hateful, as discriminatory, as offensive and fired them because of them," adds Taub.
"Then, the flight attendants’ union which is supposed to be representing these flight attendants in the disciplinary proceedings before the airline, one of their union representatives said in a chat with other union representatives, that Marli and Lacey should be thrown in a burlap bag and thrown in a well because of their comments, so this this is an extreme level of animosity that's coming from both the union and the airline and we believe it was manifestly unjust that the case was thrown out before even they had a chance to go to a jury."
