Christian clash highlights debate over gender identity job discrimination

A panel of Louisiana lawmakers rejected a proposal Wednesday that would have prohibited employers from rejecting a potential hire based on their gender identity or sexual orientation. What started off as a discussion about what rights businesses have to decide who works for them turned into a debate over Christianity, with split opinions among lawmakers past and present.

House Bill 40 failed on a 5-9 party line vote in the House Committee on Labor Industrial Relations, with Republicans prevailing.

Rep. Delisha Boyd, D-New Orleans, presented her legislation as an avenue toward addressing workforce needs while also extending basic civil rights protections to the marginalized LGBTQ+ community. It came before the committee within a week after two anti-LGBTQ+ proposals were advanced to the House floor. 

A “Don’t Say Gay” bill to quash discussions in public schools was approved in committee last week, and a proposal to ban gender-affirming healthcare for minors cleared its first hurdle to passage Tuesday.

“I think it’s a strong statement to say, after some of the other legislation that is likely to pass in this session, that Louisiana doesn’t hate gay people,” Melissa Flournoy, a former state lawmaker and co-founder of the progressive advocacy group 10,000 Women Louisiana, said in support of Boyd’s bill.

Present to oppose the bill was Woody Jenkins, an arch-conservative former member of the Louisiana House of Representatives and head of the East Baton Rouge Parish Republican Party. Committee members from both parties spent more than a half-hour in a back-and-forth discussion with Jenkins, who colored his statements with virtue-tinted hyperbole — such as his claim there are “thousands” of gender choices for people with “mental problems” who chose to “defy nature.”

Boyd’s bill represents more than a “slippery slope,” Jenkins said, that would lead to businesses and schools being forced to hire transgender employees and accommodate them with separate bathrooms and changing areas.

“It’s a mudslide into degradation of the moral fabric of our society,” he added.         

The only other person to speak to the committee against Boyd’s proposal was John Raymond, a church pastor and former headmaster of Lakeside Christian Academy in Slidell, who was arrested twice last year for cruelty to juveniles.

The Times-Picayune reported Raymond allegedly taped the mouths of three 13-year-old boys at the school for excessive talking in April 2022. A month later, he was arrested again for allegedly holding shut the nose and mouth of a 4-year-old pre-K student until he went limp. According to police, Raymond dragged the same child by his ankles and in a separate incident held the child upside down by his ankles while whipping his buttocks.

Raymond pleaded not guilty in December to four counts of cruelty to juveniles and awaits trial. 

Boyd’s legislation would force discrimination on businesses and their shareholders, Raymond argued Wednesday. If the bill became law, Louisiana businesses would see their fortunes fall, much like Anheuser-Busch InBev has seen its stock dive since a Bud Light social media promotion last month featured transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, he predicted.

Shares of AB InBev on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker symbol: BUD) have fallen from $66 on April 3, two days after the debut of Mulvaney’s Bud Light post on Instagram, to $63 as of Wednesday. Year to date, BUD stock is up more than $3 per share.

Rep. Kenny Cox, D-Natchitoches, who identified himself as a Christian, posed questions to Raymond regarding his religious beliefs. The day before, Cox voted in favor of the bill to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth, correlating it with the anti-LGTBQ+ term grooming, typically reserved for sexual predators. 

“Don’t you believe, as Christians, we should be the first person to say, ‘I’ll give you a chance?’” Cox asked the pastor of non-denominational New Horizon Church.

“This is more about not rejection but selection,” Raymond responded, “and a business owner should have the right and freedom to select the people who represent their company and their brand to their customers…”

Jasmine Kemp, a transgender person from Bogalusa, was among several people who testified in support of Boyd’s bill. Kemp, 32, said they have never held a job since graduating high school and have been called back for an interview after applying for positions at gas stations, fast food restaurants and retail businesses.

“I have been told by some of the local business owners that part of the reason they do not want to hire me is because they are afraid of how their customers will react to a transgender person working in their establishment,” Kemp told the committee. “…You are holding the livelihoods of people like me in your hands.”