I’ve to confess, the case of Los Angeles County lifeguard Capt. Jeffrey Little has me scratching my head.
Little is the veteran lifeguard who filed a spiritual discrimination, harassment and retaliation lawsuit final month in opposition to the county Fireplace Division, which incorporates lifeguards. Little alleges that he was compelled to work below a model of the rainbow-hued Satisfaction flag throughout June, which is well known as LGBTQ+ Satisfaction month, in violation of his deeply held non secular beliefs.
Little believes it’s an infringement of his civil rights to be required to hoist the flag or to oversee individuals who hoist it. It additionally appears he doesn’t wish to work at any seaside the place the flag is flown. The lawsuit is somewhat fuzzy on these factors.
Anyway, I imagine him when he says that he’s sincerely offended by shows of queer and transgender satisfaction. However I’d additionally describe his place as bigoted, alongside the strains of those that invoke their Christian religion to elucidate why they oppose interracial marriage, for instance. I’m not a fan of people that use the Bible to disclaim the very humanity of others.
Little claims in his lawsuit that the Progress Satisfaction flag in query symbolizes and advances “a variety of controversial non secular and ethical views, together with in regards to the household, the character of marriage and human sexuality together with the promotion of sure sexual practices, and the identification, nature and function of the human particular person.”
Sexual practices? I believe he’s studying an terrible lot right into a swatch of brightly coloured cloth.
Little additionally claims that he’s against the flag as a result of it has been “featured prominently throughout Homosexual Satisfaction parades world wide, together with these wherein adults put on little to no clothes whereas within the presence of kids.”
Excuse me, Los Angeles lifeguard says what?
Has the great captain not observed how many individuals are operating round L.A. seashores almost bare in your common sunny day? I imply, you’d be laborious pressed to inform the distinction between a bikini and dental floss as of late. In truth, it’s generally laborious to inform who’s carrying a thong and who is definitely bare.
However hey, so long as they don’t ask in your sexual orientation when you are caught in a rip tide, even lifeguards are allowed to be bigots, at the very least in non-public.
Imposing their faith on the remainder of us is the place I draw the road, although. Similar-sex marriage was legalized in 2015. Gender is not binary. Trans folks exist and deserve respect. Flying the Satisfaction flag is a symbolic approach of claiming, “You belong too.”
I believe Little’s bosses in all probability mishandled his complaints; they need to have anticipated that their struggles with him would supply fodder for a juicy lawsuit such because the one filed by attorneys who work with the Thomas Extra Society, a conservative Catholic authorized advocacy group.
This saga started In March 2023, when the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to boost the Progress Satisfaction flag at county services every June.
This specific flag is a variation on the Satisfaction flag that debuted in San Francisco in 1978. The unique flag, because the supervisors famous, “contained eight stripes, every a separate colour of the rainbow, plus scorching pink.” The colours symbolize intercourse, life, therapeutic, daylight, nature, magic and artwork, serenity and spirit.
Over time, the flag’s design has advanced. The extensively adopted iteration at subject dietary supplements the unique colours with chevron formed stripes of black and brown (representing marginalized LGBTQ+ folks of colour and people who have died of or live with HIV/AIDS) in addition to pink, blue and white (incorporating the trans flag).
Apparently, at the very least in a part of the lawsuit, Little doesn’t take subject with the county’s proper to boost the flag, permitting that “the federal government can communicate its personal messages.” Nonetheless, he objects to being required to boost the flag himself.
At first, he says, the division accommodated him by letting him work at a seaside the place the Satisfaction flag wasn’t displayed. (Some lifeguard stations lacked the tools to show the flag.) However he alleges that towards the tip of final June, he arrived to work at Dockweiler State Seashore to search out that the Satisfaction flag had been raised at two lifeguard towers and one other constructing, which he claims was tantamount to non secular discrimination.
His first response, he recounts, was confusion, “as I used to be below the impression that I’d not should cope with working in these situations.” After which he took the flags down.
That was dumb. As you’ll be able to think about, this act of obvious insubordination didn’t go over nicely together with his bosses. He says they revoked his dispensation to keep away from seashores with Satisfaction flags.
This was a basic energy battle. Little claims that lifeguard division Chief Fernando Boiteux, whom the lawsuit characterizes as quite a bit greater than Little and “educated in martial arts,” bodily and verbally intimidated him. “It is advisable cease what you’re doing,” Little claims Boiteux advised him. “You might be an L.A. County worker; that’s the one factor that issues. Your non secular beliefs don’t matter.”
I don’t know whether or not Boiteux really stated that — the Fireplace Division won’t touch upon the case — however in fact non secular beliefs do matter. Even when they’re outdated, misguided or bigoted.
If Little’s account is appropriate, his superiors may definitely have been extra tactful and fewer abrasive of their dealings with him. Which may have spared them the ordeal of being sued in federal court docket at a second when non secular bigotry is being enshrined in legislation by our Supreme Court docket.
It’s too dangerous, however in all probability inevitable, that the Progress Satisfaction flag has change into a battleground within the tradition warfare. And it’s too dangerous that Little didn’t strive just a bit more durable to like his neighbor.
