FL: Catholic Tchotchke-Seller Seeks Legal Right to Discriminate
The owner of the Queen of Angels store is suing the city of Jacksonville over the possibility she might be asked not to discriminate against trans customers.
by Evan Urquhart
Christie DeTrude, the owner of a store that sells Catholic-themed knick-knacks, has a problem. What exactly her problem is is somewhat unclear, but she certainly has some kind of a problem. According to reporting by the Florida Times-Union, her problem began when she “focused on debates about gender identity growing in parts of the country.” She became concerned that somehow, someway, she might run afoul of a city ordinance that bans businesses from discriminating based on gender identity. Her concern led her to design a policy to ban all seven of her part-time employees from ever using they/them pronouns, or any other pronouns that showed respect towards trans people.
DeTrude then proceeded to sue the city for the right to circulate this new policy, under the theory that the policy might otherwise be banned.
screenshot from the Florida Times-Union
The city has not attempted to cite the store, which is also not reported to have any transgender employees, or any transgender customers, or in any way have a need to discuss trans people or their pronouns in the course of doing business… but who cares? She’s suing because she’s suing, and no one can take away a weirdo’s right to frivolously sue the city government over nothing.
The Alliance Defending Freedom is representing this grifter, who is so desperate to insert herself into the culture wars (and gain a bunch of free publicity for her tchotchke shop) that she created a policy she believes to be illegal and had pre-emptively sued the city of Jacksonville over the possibility a law that might prohibit it might potentially be enforced.
UPDATE: A reader pointed out on Twitter that according to prior reporting by the Times-Union, the nondiscrimination ordinance exempts businesses with fewer than 15 employees. If DeTrude has accurately represented her business as having 7 employees, she would seem to already be exempt from the law she is trying so desperately to find some way to break.