Three judges, top, and an attorney can be seen in a U.S. Court of Appeals courtroom on Nov. 18, 2024.
The policy is based on the owner’s Christian values that demand “modesty as between the sexes” and that “a male and female should not ordinarily be in each other’s presence while in the nude unless married to each other.” The spa attracts deeply religious customers. It also has employees who “refuse to perform massages or body scrubs on naked men.”“If you have a law that says ‘white applicants only,’ this is ‘biological women entrance only.
The comparison of a “biological women only” spa policy to a “whites only” policy in a restaurant or bathroom is both a false equivalency and an intellectually disingenuous argument. Racial discrimination is explicitly prohibited under federal law and deeply rooted in a history of oppression and inequality. The spa’s policy, on the other hand, is based on sex-based distinctions that serve a practical and culturally significant purpose in the context of a nude, women-only facility.
To lump these two policies together is not merely factually flawed, it weakens the legal protections afforded to religious exercise and cultural practices.The judge’s stance appears to ignore the broader implications of compelling such businesses to alter their policies.