A Christian rescue mission in Washington state has halted hiring for fear the state’s Human Rights Commission and state Attorney General Bob Ferguson will prosecute them should they refuse to hire non-Christians.
Instead, the Union Gospel Mission of Yakima filed a federal lawsuit against Mr. Ferguson and the commission’s executive director and commissioners, asking a court to protect its free exercise rights.
Attorneys with the Alliance Defending Freedom, representing the mission, filed the lawsuit Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington. Mr. Ferguson, HRC Executive Director Andreta Armstrong, and commissioners Deborah Cook, Guadalupe Gamboa, Jeff Sbaih and Han Tran were named as defendants.
The move comes after the state’s Supreme Court limited religious employment restrictions to those qualifying for a “ministerial exception.” That case involved Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission, which refused to hire attorney Matthew Woods for a job in its legal clinic serving clients because Mr. Woods is bisexual. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of that case in March 2022.
The Yakima mission’s attorneys said Washington state is threatening “significant penalties for using its religiously based hiring practices.”
The evangelical mission, which has served the homeless for 87 years in the city of 120,000, says it risks state action if it restricts hiring to those who share its beliefs. CEO Mike Johnson said in an interview that two open positions remain unfilled, and the group has stopped advertising jobs on its website and commercial websites such as Indeed.com.
Mr. Johnson said the group has received “hostile” job applications that seem poised to generate civil complaints or lawsuits against the Christian group. According to the lawsuit, a recent applicant for an IT technician job replied, “I am not indoctrinated” when asked about their Christian faith, and wrote, “Your company just violated my personal beliefs and using the bible [sic] to teach good morals is false.”
“We’re just trying to go about doing what we’ve been doing for 86, almost 87 years, and living out our faith and helping people and then we’re scared to death; we have no idea if any of these hostile applicants are the next Matthew Woods,” Mr. Johnson said.
Jake Reed, an Alliance Defending Freedom attorney who is working on the Yakima case, said it’s not a viable option for the mission to designate all workers “ministerial” employees, a move that would presumably blunt any state opposition to the hiring practices.
“We know that the government is not going to view every single employee within the mission as a minister as has been defined by courts and case law,” Mr. Reed said. “There are certain positions, such as IT technician and Operations Assistant, that would not constitute a ministerial employee.”
He said the mission would face “liability under state law” for restricting hiring to those who share their faith, even though the U.S. Constitution protects that right. If the state can compel religious organizations to hire those who don’t share their beliefs, “the government can effectively eviscerate religious organizations from society,” he said.
Mr. Johnson said he’s hoping for an outcome that supports his organization’s goals.
“The mission just wants to be able to continue serving Jesus by how we love and, and help really broken folks out on the street, to know that God still loves them and has a plan for their lives,” he said. “We just really want to be in this for the long haul. We’re taking this action to make sure that we can continue to be and do what we’ve been being and doing since 1936.”
Repeated requests for comment from Mr. Ferguson’s office went unanswered. The state Human Rights Commission could not be reached for comment.
• Mark A. Kellner can be reached at mkellner@washingtontimes.com.
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