“Americans are being fired because of their religious beliefs”: Two flight attendants appeal

Two Alaska Airlines flight attendants are fighting back in court after they were allegedly fired for raising concerns about the Equality Act’s impact on women and people of faith.

First Liberty Institute, a nonprofit public interest law firm, is representing Lacey Smith and Marli Brown because they say they were fired by Alaska Airlines for expressing their religious beliefs in an internal forum.

In early 2021, Alaska Airlines announced its support for the Equality Act in an internal employee forum and invited employees to comment.

As CBN News reported, the Equality Act sought to add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as protected categories under federal civil rights law and required everyone to adhere to the LGBT agenda despite religious or moral objections. The measure passed the House in 2021 but failed to advance in the Senate.

According to the lawsuit, Smith posed a question asking, “As a company, do you believe it is possible to regulate morality?”

Jeff Peterson, union president of the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), reportedly contacted Alaska Airlines to complain that he found the comment offensive, Live and Let’s Fly reported.

Andy Schneider, Alaska’s senior vice president of people, responded at the forum: “Supporting the Equality Act is not about regulating morality. This is about supporting legislation that allows our LGBTQ+ employees and guests to be protected from discrimination no matter what state they live in or where they fly to.”

In the same forum, Brown asked, “Does Alaska support: endangering the church, promoting the suppression of religious freedom, eliminating women’s and parental rights?”

She continued: “This bill will force every American to embrace controversial government-imposed ideology or be treated as an outlaw. The Equality Act destroys existing civil rights and constitutional freedoms, which threatens constitutional freedoms by stripping conscience protections from the Civil Rights Act.” The Equality Act would impact everything from girls’ and women’s showers and locker rooms to women’s shelters and women’s prisons. It would compromise the security and restrict the privacy of people of the opposite sex, allowing sexual predators to exploit the rules and gain access to victims.”

According to the medium, union representatives made fun of Smith and Brown in a private chat.

“Can we PLEASE get someone to suppress comments or put Marli and Lacey in a burlap sack and throw them in a well…” a representative reportedly said.

According to First Liberty, both customers were subsequently investigated, interviewed by airline officials and fired.

The rights group filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in 2021, claiming both women were fired because of religious beliefs “that are not tolerated by the airline’s pro-gay union and upper management.”

In 2022, Brown and Smith sued Alaska Airlines and the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), a union for flight attendants.

The lawsuit alleged that the airline terminated them based on their religious beliefs related to the Equality Act, and that the AFA failed in its responsibility to defend the plaintiffs based on their religious beliefs.

“A company and an employee union may actively promote and support social and political causes, but they may not discriminate against employees who belong to a state-protected class. More specifically, “Federal law prohibits companies like Alaska Airlines…from discriminating against employees on the basis of religion, which includes all aspects of the observance and practice of religious belief and belief,” the lawsuit says.

In May, a federal district court dismissed the lawsuit because it “misdefined the scope of religious discrimination and misapplied legal standards for evaluating the evidence,” according to First Liberty.

Now the legal group has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to overturn the lower court’s decision dismissing the lawsuit.

“Americans are being fired because of their religious beliefs, and it is appalling that a court would tolerate this. We urge the Ninth Circuit to reverse the lower court’s decision,” said Stephanie Taub, senior counsel at First Liberty Institute.

“In defiance of federal civil rights laws that protect people of faith from discrimination, Alaska Airlines canceled our customers’ flights and the flight attendants union abused their trust,” she continued. “We will continue to fight for our customers until Alaska Airlines and the Association of Flight Attendants are held accountable and American employees are protected from discrimination.”

CBN News has reached out to Alaska Airlines for comment. At the time of publication we received no response.

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