A Christian missionary group announced it was suing Washington state last week over the new interpretation of a law that they say prevents them from hiring "likeminded" individuals who share their Christian values, according to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) whose attorneys are representing the group.
"Religious organizations are free to hire employees that are aligned with and live out their religious beliefs," ADF Senior Counsel Ryan Tucker told Fox News Digital. "Washington state has a nondiscrimination law in place, and for years, religious organizations have been able to hire individuals aligned with their beliefs with no problem."
"The Washington Supreme Court recently gutted the state's religious employer exemption, and that law, which allows them to hire like-minded individuals," he added. "Now all religious organizations in the state, including Yakima Union Gospel Mission, are in harms way due to the state's actions."
Through the lawsuit, Yakima Union Gospel Mission (YUGM) is fighting to protect what its lawyers argue is the organization's constitutional right to hire people who live by its mission "to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ through its homeless shelter, addiction-recovery programs, outreach efforts, meal services, and health clinics for the Yakima community."
The Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD) prohibits sexual orientation discrimination in employment, and the lawsuit claims Washington state officials view the mission's employee requirements as "unlawful sexual orientation discrimination" under the law.
ADF asserts that the Washington Supreme Court "reinterpreted state law to prohibit religious organizations, like the mission, from only hiring individuals who share its religious beliefs" and as a result, state officials are now "threatening the mission with significant penalties for using its religiously based hiring practices."
Yakima Union Gospel Mission CEO Mike Johnson told Fox News Digital this new interpretation has forced them to pause hiring.
"Everything has really changed over the last couple of years for us," Johnson said. "We've had to completely eliminate all of our public advertising for positions because we started getting a whole bunch of hostile applications."
"The state Attorney General is going after another organization like ours right now, so we've pulled down a couple of open positions," he added. "Every job opening we have now, we have to weigh the risk of advertising this position with the risk of not filling it, because everything has become so risky for us now."
He said YUGM has received applications from people who openly disagree with or are hostile to the group's religious beliefs on marriage and sexuality, which recently forced his organization to take down an online posting for an IT technician position to avoid being penalized by the state. Since then, YUGM has refrained from posting an operations assistant position and has halted hiring.
"The Yakima Mission recently received an application for an IT position, and the applicant said that the Bible was, quote unquote, false and that religion was indoctrination," Tucker said. "Clearly a Christian mission shouldn't be forced to hire individuals who do not believe in the Bible, but under Washington's interpretation of its nondiscrimination law, it would have to do so. So that's why the Yakima mission is bringing this lawsuit."
YUGM states that it serves everybody equally, but is able to further its religious purpose by "maintaining an internal body" of "likeminded believers who agree with and live out the Mission’s Christian beliefs and practices." YUGM employees must adhere to certain Christian requirements which includes "abstaining from any sexual conduct outside of biblical marriage between one man and one woman—in order to properly live out and represent a Christian lifestyle and to not undermine the Mission’s religious message."
"We just want to be able to do our jobs to be able to keep loving people in Jesus' name and now just everything is fraught," he added. "We're deathly afraid that we're the next one's for the attorney general to come after."
Johnson stressed the implications that the new interpretation of WLAD has for all religious organizations, not just the mission.
"I think that it's important for people to understand that this isn't just about the Mission, that every organization like ours, every organization that's faith based in the state of Washington right now, is under a very unique situation in which our rights have been severely curtailed and our ability to be who we are and ensure that continuity by hiring people that share our faith," he said.
YUGM provided a total of 30,167 nights of shelter to 881 different adults and 3,592 nights of shelter to children from July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022, according to the lawsuit. The organization also provides three free meals a day to both the public and shelter guests, which served 141,629 free meals during that same timeframe. In addition, the YUGM's New Life Recovery Program helps individuals recover from homelessness as well as drug and alcohol addiction through its year-long faith-based residential community.
Not only is WLAD unconstitutional, Tucker said, but by forcing the YUGM to hire people that do not share the same beliefs, the state of Washington is undermining the mission's work, putting it in "extreme jeopardy."
"Under the First Amendment, the government doesn't get to decide who is qualified to share the mission's Christian message, spread the gospel or disciple one another," he said. "If the mission cannot make sure that all of its employees agree with and live out its beliefs, its Christian message and its very purpose will be contradicted and quite frankly, undermined.
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Johnson said his hope is that through the lawsuit, YUGM's rights as a Christian organization will be restored.
"We believe that God loves these folks that are stuck out on the street and it is the hope of the Gospel that motivates us and that's the hope that we're able to offer them," he said. "We just want to be able to have our rights restored to go about doing that."
Attorney General Robert Ferguson told Fox News Digital the state "routinely" defeats ADF in court, and will be seeking an early dismissal of the lawsuit, which he views as an attempt to push "extreme theories in court."
"My office respects the religious views of all Washingtonians and the constitutional rights afforded to religious institutions. As a person of faith, I share that view," he added.
