Christian flight attendants Marli Brown and Lacey Smith were fired after commenting on an Alaska Airlines post on an internal company message board. They simply questioned the airline’s support for the Equality Act, a measure that threatens religious liberty, free speech and women’s sports, privacy and safety.
The women believe that humans come in two types – male and female – and that marriage is designed for a man and a woman. The airline and union officials disparaged their comments, calling them “hateful” and “offensive.”
In May 2022, First Liberty, a religious freedom legal aid organization, filed a suit against the airline and the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) on behalf of the pair, alleging religious discrimination, violation of EEOC Title VII regulations, the creation of a hostile work environment and workplace harassment.
Brown and Smith lost a lower court decision, so they’ve appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, asking that the decision be overturned.
The original complaint explains:
On February 25, 2021, Alaska Airlines posted an article about its support for the Equality Act to an internal employee message board and solicited employee comments. The Equality Act is proposed legislation that would add “sexual orientation and gender identity” as protected classes to a variety of federal statutes and would curtail the applicability of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Because of their Christian beliefs “that marriage is the union of one man and one woman and that male and female are defined by biological difference between the sexes,” each wrote a comment “asking about the impact of the Equality Act on civil rights for religion and women in the workplace.”
The complaint explains that “Alaska Airlines had a long history of respect and tolerance for diverse religious beliefs among its employees and customers,” even placing “‘prayer cards’ on passengers’ meal trays.” But the company stopped doing this in 2012, and the workplace culture began to shift:
Over the past few years, Alaska Airlines dramatically increased its social advocacy for LGBTQ+ causes, while at the same time excluding, silencing, and ostracizing employees of faith who hold religious beliefs on issues of sexual morality.
While Alaska Airlines claims to embrace diversity, its recent diversity statements often list “gender or sexual orientation,” but fail to mention “religion” as part of that inclusivity and diversity, the complaint said.
Brown had read an article about the Equality Act from the Heritage Foundation, “Eleven Myths About the Equality Act,” explaining the dangers of the legislation. She then commented on message board:
Does Alaska support: endangering the Church, encouraging suppression of religious freedom, obliterating women rights and parental rights? This act will force every American to agree with controversial government-imposed ideology on or be treated as an outlaw.
The Equality Act demolishes existing civil rights and constitutional freedoms which threaten constitutional freedoms by eliminating conscience protections from the Civil Rights Act.
The Equality act would affect everything from girls’ and women’s showers and locker rooms to women’s shelters and women’s prisons, endangering safety and diminishing privacy. Giving people blanket permission to enter private spaces for the opposite sex enables sexual predators to exploit the rules and gain easy access to victims.
The airline removed Brown’s post from the internal message board, due to violation of “company policies and procedures” – guidelines which the company did not specify.
As a result, her badge was taken, and she was “withheld from service for two weeks pending an investigation.”
The union provided little support for Brown. AFA representative Terry Taylor told Brown “that the information she learned from her research on the Equality Act was false” and “that women and children have not actually been attacked in formerly sex-segregated private spaces” open to men who claim to be women.
Union officials disparaged the two women’s beliefs, and Taylor even posted a comment on a Google Chat with other representatives:
Can we PLEASE get someone to shut down comments, or put Marli and Lacey in a burlap bag and drop them in a well.
Alaska Airlines eventually fired Brown, with the Notice of Discharge calling her post “‘hateful,’ ‘offensive,’ and ‘discriminatory.’”
Smith, likewise, posted a comment questioning the airlines’ support of the Equality Act, simply asking, “As a company, do you think it’s possible to regulate morality?”
According to the complaint:
She wanted to know if the Airline thought that it was possible or good for employers to require employee conformity with employer beliefs on moral issues that conflict with the religious or moral beliefs of many.
Her question was deleted, and she was suspended, receiving the same treatment as Brown.
First Liberty, along with volunteer attorneys at Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak, allege in their appeal:
The lower court erred by holding that religious comments do not fall within this broad definition of religion. It concluded, “Given the evidence in the record, the only reasonable inference that one can draw is that Alaska did not terminate Plaintiffs because of their religion, but because of the comments they posted.”
What the court failed to acknowledge is that the Airline fired Plaintiffs because the comments reflected their religious beliefs, which are beliefs the Airline disdains. It is religious discrimination to fire employees because the employer dislikes their religious beliefs.
So Brown and Smith were fired because of their deep religious beliefs about humanity being created in the image of God – male and female – and about marriage as the union of a man and a woman, beliefs held by Christians, and other individuals familiar with basic sociology and biology, throughout the centuries and around the globe.
We are deeply encouraged by and pray for Lacey Smith and Marli Brown as they continue their courageous fight to protect foundational First Amendment freedoms.
The case is Brown v. Alaska Airlines.
Related articles and resources:
“Equality Act” – An Assault on Freedom, Privacy and Safety
First Liberty: Flight Attendants Fired by Alaska Airlines Appeal to Ninth Circuit
House to Consider ‘Equality Act’ – A Threat to Life and Freedom
What Rights do Religious Employees Have in the Workplace?
Photo credit: First Liberty
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