I’m writing in response to the July 10 guest column by Sabrina Schnur about Butler’s potential antidiscrimination ordinance and to forewarn this city of the potential peril should this ordinance be approved by city council.

We appreciated the article by Schnur, an officer of the Butler Count PFLAG chapter, since it exposed the many false narratives we hear by many activists of PFLAG, GSA and other similar organizations across this nation. The column was misleading and disingenuous on several key issues.

In short, the potential city ordinance would unleash a nightmare for entrepreneurs, businesses and religious organizations.

The writer stated that this “ordinance explicitly exempts religious corporations and associations” and therefore, “churches will not be bound by this ordinance.” Whether it is intentional or not we do not know. But this statement is simply false.

Religious corporations and associations (i.e. churches, synagogues, Christian schools, Christian ministries and religious organizations) can hire on the basis of religion for all their employees, but this city ordinance will not exempt these organizations with regard to other protected classes even if they try to use biblical standards as the basis for the decision. We know this is true because this is how federal and Pennsylvania laws regarding discrimination are interpreted.

In other words, this ordinance would discriminate against churches, religious schools and religious ministries, by making it illegal to hire employees in part on whether they agree with and adhere to the religious organization’s beliefs about marriage and human sexuality.

In December 2015, a Massachusetts court held that because sexual orientation was now a “protected class,” a Catholic school, even though permitted to hire all its employees on the basis of religion, could no longer extend that practice to religious beliefs or practices dealing with sexual orientation.

In addition, the proposed ordinance would destroy privacy rights because it would force employers and public accommodations to open restrooms and locker rooms to members of the opposite biological gender. Every business and religious organization and schools and every place open to the public would be required by law to permit men who identify or express themselves as a woman to use women-only bathrooms and locker rooms. And it would even apply to churches and religious organizations to open restrooms within their buildings to the opposite gender during worship because there are no religious protections when it comes to public accommodations.

Further, the column states that this ordinance would create an environment for businesses to prosper. But this statement is also false. Instead, it would be extremely harmful to small business in the city. If the ordinance uses the same language from that of the previous ordinance that was proposed in 2011 — and failed by a 3-2 vote — then any “perceived” acts of discrimination would violate city law.

Imagine the nightmare of a legislative climate in which the already high failure rate of starting a business or the extra burden on business owners to litigate claims with no evidence but only the perception.

Besides, under federal and state law, it is already illegal for non-religious organizations to hire and fire on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity or gender expression.

This ordinance would simply target small businesses in Butler for more baseless and expensive litigation. This law attempts to solve a problem that does not exist. These laws have been used to force everyone to abandon their privacy rights and to use restrooms and locker rooms with members of the opposite gender. 

In short, this ordinance would cause irreversible harm to this city, its businesses and every religious corporation and association.