In San Antonio, Texas, a former Macy's employee is trying to argue that the Constitution protects her right to discriminate against certain customers, regardless of the policies of her employer. In November, Natalie Johnson confronted a transgender customer who used the women's dressing room, insisting that they must use the men's dressing room. Her manager informed her that it's Macy's policy that transgender customer pick which dressing room they will use.
Natalie Johnson, however, refused to comply and said that it's against her religious convictions to recognize that "transgender" people even exist, never mind that Macy's has the authority to let them pick which dressing room they use. She was fired and now she's suing.
"I had to either comply with Macy's or comply with God," said Johnson, 27, a student at San Antonio College and member of Tabernacle of Prayer, a nondenominational church on the Southwest Side. ...
She said being fired during the holiday season was particularly deflating, but she's relieved her conscience is clean.
"Obviously, (Macy's) policy is not equal, because I was fired for standing up for what I believe in," Johnson said. "I couldn't lie and say that he was a woman. I'm going to be accountable to what I say to my Lord Jesus. And I'm taking up for my female customers who might feel uncomfortable with a man in the fitting room."
Johnson's pastor, Bishop Robert Doxie, backed her stand. "We believe the Bible was right when it says God created men and women," said Doxie, who said his church is attended by 50 to 100 at an average service. "We stand on that and promote that."
Source: My San Antonio
Let's consider what Natalie Johnson might be demanding with her legal complaint.
Is she demanding that she, as a Christian, be accorded a right to do whatever she wants simply because she's a Christian? If she did have such a right then she'd be allowed to discriminate -- but there's no way that our law can recognize any such "right". I strongly suspect that this is exactly what some Christians want, but we don't see any openly advocating such a policy... yet.
Is she demanding that she has a right to discriminate that is more important than other people's right to be free from discrimination? Sometimes that sort of argument works -- for example, gun stores are required to discriminate against certain types of people looking for guns, even though there is constitutional protection for gun ownership. Natalie Johnson would be hard-pressed to argue, though, that there is a valid analogy here.
Is she demanding a right to discriminate against anyone who fails to obey her religion, as the transgender customer was certainly doing? That's not a demand that the law can accommodate. By such reasoning, Johnson could refuse to serve anyone who wasn't a Christian. So she has no right to insist that customer obey her religion's regulations and standards. This, too, sometimes seems to be what some Christians want and they are much closer to openly advocating such a policy.
Is she demanding that she be allowed to discriminate against anyone which her religion commands here to discriminate against? First, she'd have to show that she is indeed commanded to discriminate against transgender people and that would be tough. Even if she succeeded, though, there's no way that the law could accept that because that would make a mockery of anti-discrimination laws. It would make discrimination a protected religious practice, even outside religious institutions. That would be absurd.
The closest thing to a legitimate argument that Natalie Johnson might have is to claim that being forced to follow Macy's anti-discrimination policies would also force her to violate some tenet of her religion -- and therefore being allowed to discriminate is the only way for her to remain true to her religion. She'd have to make the analogy to something like being forced to work on her religion's sabbath: protection for her religious rights requires accommodation from her employer.
Where such an argument fails is that there is no competing constitutional or moral right when it comes to accommodating an employee's sabbath. Natalie Johnson is demanding that she be allowed to disregard the human, moral, and constitutional rights of another American citizens. She's trying to assert that by virtue of her own religious beliefs, her rights be treated as more important than another citizen's rights -- and solely for religious reasons.
If her religion interferes with how she can treat another person, then she's the one who has to step aside -- she has no basis for demanding that others give up dignity and rights just to accommodate her. She, however, gives up no rights by stepping aside and letting others go about their lives in ways that fail to live up to her religion's dogmas.
You don't have a constitutionally protected religious right to practice religious discrimination (outside of a religious institution, of course). Your religious rights are almost entirely restricted to the sphere of your private behavior; they do not extend to how you are allowed to treat other people around you. You have no constitutionally protected religious right to treat people in a way they don't want or like and which others are not allowed to do simply because you have a "religious" reason for it.
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