Motus Mentis

The next skirmish in the war for religious rights and freedom of association might be the case of the Hope Center, of Anchorage Alaska, a Christian charitable organization that provides succor for the poor and downtrodden. Among the services it provides is a women’s shelter. The shelter’s clients are typically victims of domestic and sexual abuse by men, and the center’s mission for the past thirty years, “inspired by the love of Jesus”, has been to offer them “support, shelter, sustenance, and the skills to transform their lives”.

Well, leave it to the modern Left to ruin everything that falls under its baleful eye, as always. Apparently the Hope Center one night turned away a drunken man, claiming to be a woman, who wanted to enter the premises to sleep in the women’s shelter. The center gave the man, who did not seem well, carfare to the hospital and sent him on his way. It appears that by doing so the shelter has run afoul of a city law requiring them to treat everyone as the sex they announce themselves to be. In the opinion of the shelter, it would not be kind to the women staying there (who, as noted above, have in many cases been sexually ill-treated by men, and have come to the shelter as a haven from them), to have a biological male living among them in what, as you can imagine, are rather intimate circumstances. The center has now filed a federal lawsuit seeking an injunction against the city. A report by the Anchorage TV station KTUU quotes a representative of the Alliance Defending Freedom, who are handling the suit:

“It would not only be dangerous and against common sense, but would violate the Hope Center’s sincerely held religious beliefs to admit biological men into its shelter and allow them to sleep side by side and disrobe next to women, some of whom have been assaulted by men and fear for their safety,’ ADF wrote in its federal complaint against the City of Anchorage and the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission.

Early days yet on this one. May Hope prevail.