Seth Udinski, FISM News
Hobby Lobby is under scrutiny for exercising its right to only allow biological women to use the women’s restrooms.
Owned by Christians, the home-decor retail store was fined $220,000 for preventing a trans-woman from using the women’s restroom at its location in East Aurora, Illinois, despite the fact that the company had provided a unisex bathroom option. Meggan Somerville is a biological male who now identifies as a woman, and he was barred from using the women’s restroom multiple times. According to a report by The Christian Post, he even “faced disciplinary action” for doing so. In a 3-0 ruling last week, a court in Illinois ordered Hobby Lobby to pay the $220,000 fine for causing Somerville “emotional distress” and “discriminating” against him based on his sexual identity.
The ruling stated,
Hobby Lobby’s provision of a unisex bathroom available to all employees and customers cannot cure its unequal treatment of Sommerville with respect to the women’s bathroom. If every employee and customer except Sommerville may use either the unisex bathroom or the bathroom corresponding to their sex, but Sommerville’s choices are limited to the unisex bathroom or a bathroom that does not correspond to her sex, Hobby Lobby is still discriminating unlawfully….The Commission did not err in finding that Hobby Lobby’s conduct of denying Sommerville access to its women’s bathroom violated her civil rights under articles 2 and 5 of the Act.
To be painfully clear, Hobby Lobby’s actions did not constitute “unlawful discrimination.” This is a business exercising its right to freedom of religion and protecting female customers from potential sexual crimes against them by preventing men from using a women’s restroom. It is common sense that many on the left continue to ignore.