Barring discrimination in public accommodations began because people thought it abhorrent that a business would deny service to someone because of their race, and so those of different races could be treated just like others from another race. Discussion on “right to refuse service” aside, it was a desire to be treated just like everyone else and have access to the same goods and services as others.
This began to mutate, though, to not only ban discrimination against people on some perceived unalterable status, such as being “trans-gendered” (even though “gender is just a social construct”) but require the business to use their personal creative abilities to express a moral message, or participate in a activity with a moral component.
This is a very clear distinction that the courts have largely conflated. But by the conflation, we’ve gone from telling businesses who they can and can not serve, to what they can and can not serve.
This surrender of fundamental liberties such as free speech, religious freedom, &c. is excused as being allowable because it involved commerce. Elsewhere in the world, 1st Amendment protections do not exist and governments are free to limit them whenever they want. That these liberties have been deemed limitable in the United States has been predicated on the idea that one has less rights when engaging in regulatable commerce, or otherwise providing a “public accommodation”.
But the idea of what a “public accommodation” has been expanded to anything that is not a closed members-only establishment, such as a church. The Iowa Civil Rights Commission is pushing gender identity guidelines that explicitly deny freedom of worship for any “church service open to the public”:
“The guidelines, published in a ‘public accommodations providers guide to Iowa law’ contain the usual nondiscrimination catch-all phrases, noting that a ‘public accommodation’ commits an act of gender identity discrimination when it, to take a few examples, intentionally uses names and pronouns inconsistent with the person’s ‘presented gender’ (whatever that means), refuses access to preferred bathrooms, or even ‘indirectly’ advertises that a transgender person is ‘unwelcome’ or ‘not acceptable.’
“Incredibly, the document contains an FAQ specifically directed at churches. Here it is:
“DOES THIS LAW APPLY TO CHURCHES?
“Sometimes. Iowa law provides that these protections do not apply to religious institutions with respect to any religion-based qualifications when such qualifications are related to a bona fide religious purpose. Where qualifications are not related to a bona fide religious purpose, churches are still subject to the law’s provisions. (e.g. a child care facility operated at a church or a church service open to the public).”
So, if a church or a mosque quoted accurately from their own holy texts, they could be punished by the state. This is already the law of the land in Canada.
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