Gay Rights Gain Upper Hand in Courts

Religious groups are coming out losers in an increasingly significant body of lawsuits: those involving discrimination based on sexual orientation. The groups say it’s an impingement on their religious freedom, but a gay-right advocate tells the Washington Post, “We are not required to pay the price for other people’s religious views about us.”

Courts have recently ruled against private businesses, including one whose employees refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian. A recent decision stripping Christian Bob Jones University of a tax exemption due to its bans on interracial dating and marriage among students “puts us on a slippery slope that inevitably takes us to the point where we punish religious groups because of their religious views,” one analyst says. (More gay rights stories.)