After city declines to prosecute, judge dismisses faith-based shelter's challenge to Anchorage's

After city declines to prosecute, judge dismisses faith-based shelter’s challenge to Anchorage’s LGBTQ anti-discrimination law


A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging Anchorage’s anti-discrimination law but will allow the faith-based women’s shelter that challenged the law to seek financial damages from the city.

The Downtown Soup Kitchen Hope Center does not admit transgender women and cited its religious beliefs in the lawsuit, which accused the municipality of violating the First Amendment’s protections for free exercise of religion.

In August, the municipality said it does not consider the shelter a “public accommodation” subject to the law and will not enforce the discrimination law against it.

With a Monday order, Alaska District Court Judge Sharon Gleason cited that interpretation as a reason to dismiss the Hope Center’s lawsuit but said the shelter is eligible for damages for the three-month period in which the center declined to post its rules because it feared prosecution.

Read more: https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/anchorage/2021/12/22/after-city-declines-to-prosecute-judge-dismisses-faith-based-shelters-challenge-to-anchorages-lgbtq-anti-discrimination-law/
(Anchorage Daily News)