The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that private businesses with religious convictions can be exempt from antidiscrimination laws that protect LGBTQ+ workers.
On June 20, the court ruled in favor of Braidwood Management in Katy, Texas, and Bear Creek Bible Church in Keller, Texas, which sued the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for allegedly infringing on their religious liberties.
Braidwood is a management company that employs about 70 workers at Hotze Health & Wellness Center, Hotze Vitamins, and Physicians Preference Pharmacy International. Steven Hotze owns Braidwood and does not permit the company to hire people who exhibit homosexual or gender-nonconforming behavior.
Bear Creek is a nondenominational Christian church that opposes same-sex marriage and also does not hire people who exhibit homosexual or gender-nonconforming behavior, according to court documents.
Braidwood enforces a dress code that disallows gender-nonconforming styles. Braidwood and Bear Creek also require workers' bathroom usage to be determined "by solely biological sex," according to court documents.
Both policies violate current EEOC guidance. The two organizations asked the court to affirm their workplace policies and confirm that federal law does not prohibit employers from establishing sex-neutral codes of conduct that effectively exclude LGBTQ+ people from employment.
The EEOC said Braidwood and Bear Creek didn't have standing to bring the case...
NPR and NewsGuard tested six chatbots and four search engines with 30 questions built on false claims spread by Russia, China and Iran. The chatbots debunked the claims on average about three tim...