Biden rule requiring Christian groups to embrace gender ideology faces lawsuit

(The Center Square) – A new Biden administration rule requiring Christian and other religious groups to comply on transgender ideology is facing a legal challenge.

The issue arose when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission redefined workplace protections based on “sex” to instead mean “gender identity.”

The Christian Employers Alliance partnered with the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom to file a lawsuit against the Biden administration challenging the new rule.

“This mandate, published in agency ‘guidance’ and on its website, threatens employers with large penalties if they do not use employees’ self selected pronouns based on gender identity, and if they do not allow males to access female single-sex restrooms, locker rooms, and lactation rooms,” the lawsuit reads.

The Biden administration did something similar with its interpretation of Title IX, which kicked off the ongoing legal battle over gender pronouns, bathrooms and sports teams in schools around the country.

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“All employers, including those in the Christian Employers Alliance, have the constitutionally protected freedom to conduct their business in a manner consistent with their deeply held religious beliefs,” ADF Senior Counsel Matt Bowman said in a statement. “The employers we represent believe that God purposefully created humans as either male or female, and so it would violate their religious beliefs and free speech to force them to affirm an identity that is not aligned with a person’s sex.

“They also believe in the sanctity of human life, and forcing them to promote abortions adds insult to injury. We are urging the court to, once again, uphold the religious freedom of these employers from attacks by the outgoing Biden administration,” he added.

The same lawsuit argues that recent changes to the interpretation of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act “prevents employers from speaking their pro-life beliefs, requires employers to knowingly give employees special leave, including paid leave, to obtain abortions, and precludes employers from enforcing life-affirming workplace policies against employees who engage in conduct contrary to those policies.”

EEOC declined to comment and referred The Center Square to the Department of Justice.