On Tuesday, a Lexington Human Rights Commission hearing examiner issued a recommended ruling that the owner of a T-shirt company violated a local ordinance against sexual-orientation discrimination. You can read the ruling by clicking here.“It was a landmark decision,” Sexton said. “This is a very important ruling for us.”The examiner concluded that Blaine Adamson of Hands On Originals broke the law in 2012 by declining to print shirts promoting the Lexington Pride Festival. The Gay and Lesbian Services Organization subsequently filed a complaint.Alliance Defending Freedom, a law firm that specializes in religious liberty cases, represented Adamson, a devout Christian.“No one should be forced by the government or by another citizen to endorse or promote ideas with which they disagree,” said ADF attorney Jim Campbell. “Blaine declined to the request to print the shirts not because of any characteristic of the people who asked for them, but because of the message that the shirts would communicate.”ADF also pointed out that Hands On Originals has a history of doing business with the LGBT community as well has hiring LGBT workers.But Sexton told me the law is the law. And in Lexington it’s against the law to discriminate against the LGBT community – regardless of religious beliefs.“We’re not telling someone how to feel with respect to religion, but the law is pretty clear that if you operate a business to the public, you need to provide your services to people regardless of race, color, sex and in this case sexual orientation,” Sexton said.
You know what the penalty was: diversity training.
Take just a moment and let that sink in – a Christian business owner is being ordered to attend diversity training – because of his religious beliefs. That’s a pretty frightening concept and a mighty dangerous precedent.
How is this any different from the Khmer Rouge's re-education camps?
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