Wash. Supreme Court published opinion — 961328.pdf

Citation: Wash. Supreme Court published opinion — 961328.pdf
Jurisdiction: Washington (state)
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Original Source: https://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf/961328.pdf ↗

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all citizens in the commercial marketplace. Were we to carve out a patchwork of

exceptions for ostensibly justified discrimination, that purpose would be fatally

undermined.” Id. at 531 (footnote omitted). We unanimously held WLAD survives

strict scrutiny in an article I, section 11 challenge. Id. at 528-32.

The reasoning in Arlene’s Flowers applies equally here because employment

and public accommodation antidiscrimination laws serve the same purpose—

“eradicating barriers to the equal treatment of all citizens.” See id. at 531. Providing

ad hoc exemptions for sincere religious beliefs would frustrate WLAD’s goal of

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For the current opinion, go to https://www.lexisnexis.com/clients/wareports/.
Woods v. Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission, 96132-8
(Stephens, J., dissenting in part and concurring in part)

“elimination and prevention of discrimination in employment.” RCW 49.60.010;

see Masterpiece Cakeshop, 138 S. Ct. at 1727 (noting that if the Court did not

confine the refusal to provide goods and services to ministers who object to LGBTQ

lifestyles on moral and religious grounds, “then a long list of persons who provide

goods and services . . . might refuse to do so for gay persons, thus resulting in a

community-wide stigma inconsistent with the history and dynamics of civil rights

laws that ensure equal access to goods, services, and public accommodations”).

Allowing religious employers to discriminate against LGBTQ persons outside the

context of ministerial employment would likewise lead to “a community-wide

stigma” that WLAD aims to eliminate. See Masterpiece Cakeshop, 138 S. Ct. at

1727.

More to the point, like the court in Arlene’s Flowers, I cannot locate “any case