A longtime Los Angeles County lifeguard stationed in Pacific Palisades close to a stretch beloved by homosexual beachgoers is suing the county for requiring him to work toes away from a Delight flag final summer time and punishing him for taking three of the flags down.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court docket Could 24 every week earlier than this 12 months’s Delight month kicks off, brings the county’s glowing shoreline squarely into the nation’s tradition wars.
Jeffrey Little, an evangelical Christian who has labored for the county for greater than 22 years, is represented by attorneys from the Thomas Extra Society, a conservative Catholic authorized group recognized for difficult abortion rights, the 2020 election outcomes and same-sex marriage.
In a present of assist for LBGTQ+ constituents, officers with each the metropolis of Los Angeles and L.A. County have lately pushed to lift the Delight flag at authorities buildings. Final 12 months, the county board of supervisors voted to require that many authorities buildings fly the Progress Delight flag all through Delight month.
That included the lifeguard amenities the place Little labored at Will Rogers Seashore, which is dwelling to a traditionally LGBTQ+ pleasant part generally known as Ginger Rogers Seashore.
A spokesperson for the L.A. County fireplace division, which oversees lifeguards, mentioned the company doesn’t touch upon personnel points or ongoing litigation.
Little, a captain with the county’s lifeguard division, advised higher-ups in June that he wished to be exempt from the county coverage ordering the elevating of the flag, which is a modified model of the standard rainbow flag with additional stripes representing folks of colour and transgender and nonbinary folks.
He knowledgeable them that he was a religious evangelical who “adheres to conventional Christian beliefs concerning the ethical illicitness of same-sex exercise, the immutability of intercourse no matter gender identification, and the view that each one persons are youngsters of God no matter their pores and skin colour” in accordance with the lawsuit.
“The views generally related to the Progress Delight flag on marriage, intercourse, and household are in direct battle with Captain Little’s bona fide and sincerely held non secular beliefs on the identical topics,” the go well with mentioned.
Final June, a few of the county’s lifeguard stations weren’t flying the Delight flag as a result of they didn’t have the correct flagpoles, in accordance with the go well with. At Little’s request, his bosses initially agreed to present him a spiritual lodging and alter his shift so he might work at a website that didn’t have a flag, the lawsuit mentioned.
When he arrived at Dockweiler Seashore on June 21 — one of many websites he alleged was presupposed to be flagless — Little mentioned he discovered the Delight flag hoisted at three close by amenities, in accordance with a grievance he filed with the county. He was knowledgeable {that a} chief had dropped off the flags and ordered they be flown, which Little alleged was a type of non secular discrimination.
“I used to be confused [as] to why they had been flying as I used to be below the impression that I’d not should take care of working in these situations,” he wrote within the grievance filed June 22.
He took down all three flags, in accordance with the go well with.
The following day, Fernando Boiteux, the chief of the lifeguard division, hand-delivered him a “direct order” to make sure the Delight flag was flown via June.
The day after, in accordance with the lawsuit, Little was suspended from his function with the division’s background investigation unit, which investigates “emergency incidents” on the seashore. Little additionally mentioned he later acquired a loss of life risk within the mail at his dwelling calling him a “fascist pig” and threatening his youngsters, in accordance with a duplicate of the observe connected within the lawsuit.
This spring, Little requested once more for lodging so he wouldn’t should work close to the Delight flag, in accordance with the go well with. He mentioned the county has not “substantively engaged” with him and warned him he could be topic “to self-discipline and eventual termination for failure to lift the Progress Delight flag.”
The go well with, which names the hearth division in addition to three higher-ups within the lifeguard division, accuses the county of discrimination and trampling on Little’s non secular freedom. Little is asking a decide to order the county to present him a “standing exemption” from elevating the Delight flag and for damages for “extreme emotional misery,” amongst different calls for.
Little earned $210,000 final 12 months, in accordance with publicly obtainable wage data, and in addition works as a licensed monetary planner. In response to his enterprise’ web site, he serves on the board of the Los Angeles County Lifeguard Assn., which advocates for county lifeguards, and is a member of a county committee overseeing worker retirement plans.
Attorneys Charles S. LiMandri and Paul M. Jonna, who each have their very own legislation corporations and function particular counsel for the Thomas Extra Society, didn’t reply to a request for remark.
In 2021, LiMandri represented a church that was violating L.A. County COVID prohibitions in opposition to indoor providers. The county agreed in a settlement to pay $400,000 to the church.
