A business is suing a Church in Oregon because the Church denied them access to utilize a Church facility, which the Church owns. The Ambridge Event Center in Portland, Oregon rejected an LGBT group’s request in 2015 to host an event on the property because of the Church’s morals clause.
The lawsuit was filed last week in Multnomah County Circuit Court in Oregon. The complainant is arguing that the Church’s rules, which disallowed them to host the LGBT event, has caused them $2.3 million in damages.
The event was to be hosted on Church grounds by the PFLAG Black Chapter, an African-American LGBT support group. Ambridge had to deny the request and stated that the denial came from the Church, Holy Rosary.
Previously, PFLAG considered filing a complaint against the Church. However, Churches are exempted from the state antidiscrimination law.
The fact of the matter, according to Rod Dreher a Senior Editor at The American Conservative, “this will not be the last challenge of this sort against churches.”
After the ordeal, the Church ended the contract with Ambridge due in part to the company hiring openly gay event coordinators. However, in the lawsuit, Ambridge alleged that because of the Church’s policies and actions, other organizations not affiliated with the LGBTQ refused to utilize Ambridge’s services because of its involvement with the Church.
Ambridge claims: “Even businesses and government entities that had previously scheduled events with Ambridge who were not affiliated with the LGBTQ community but had equity-driven internal policies, refused to work with Ambridge after reading or hearing about the discriminatory policy involved in its employment relationship with the church.”
Ambridge filed its complaint against the Church after the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled against a Christian couple who were sued $135,000 for refusing to bake a gay wedding cake due to their moral and religious objections.