Month: July 2016

Iowa Civil Rights Commission Releases Revised Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Public Accommodations Brochure

This just in from the Iowa Civil Rights Commission:

Iowa Civil Rights Commission Releases Revised Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity Public Accommodations Brochure
The Iowa Civil Rights Commission announced today the publication of its Revised Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity Public Accommodations Brochure.  The revision replaces the previous version which had not been updated since 2008 and clarifies that religious activities by a church are exempt from the Iowa Civil Rights Act.
“The Iowa Civil Rights Commission has never considered a complaint against a church or other place of worship on this issue,” said director Kristin H. Johnson. “This statute was amended to add these protected classes (sexual orientation and gender identity) in 2007 and has been in effect since then. The Iowa Civil Rights Commission has not done anything to suggest it would be enforcing these laws against ministers in the pulpit, and there has been no new publication or statement from the ICRC raising the issue. The Commission regrets the confusion caused by the previous publication.”
The revised brochure may be found at this link: https://icrc.iowa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/2016/2016.sogi_.pa1_.pdf

This new language is more clear:

P L A C E S O F W O R S H I P
Places of worship (e.g. churches, synagogues, mosques, etc.) are generally exempt from the Iowa law’s prohibition of discrimination, unless the place of worship engages in non-religious activities which are open to the public. For example, the law may apply to an independent day care or polling place located on the premises of the place of worship.

By independent day care, the Commission means a day care renting or leasing a place of worship and not being conducted by the church as a part of the church’s ministry. Ms. Johnson clarified that to me earlier in the week.
For background on this issue see these posts: Link, link

NewSpring Church Won't Deny Departure of Perry Noble (UPDATED – Noble Dismissed July 1)

Yesterday, Watchkeep Blog speculated that Anderson, SC megachurch NewSpring Church had fired pastor Perry Noble. Today, I emailed NewSpring Communications Director Suzanne Swift and ask if she could confirm or deny this report. She replied via email and said:

I would love to invite you to join us at church this Sunday to learn more from Perry and NewSpring Church. We will have services on Sunday at 9:15am, 11:15am, 4pm or 6pm at our Anderson Campus, located at 2940 Concord Road.

When I told her I couldn’t make it, she said I could watch the service at NewSpring.cc.
Apparently, local news outlets are on to something because South Carolina television station WYFF reported on a closed door leadership meeting today at the church. When asked by WYFF about the meeting, Swift gave the exact same answer to WYFF as she did to me and Watchkeep.
The lack of a denial seems odd but apparently the church wants people to tune in Sunday to find out.
Noble has faced friendly fire from his Southern Baptist peers and has been a consistent supporter of Mark Driscoll and in the face of criticism defended Driscoll’s appearance at his leadership conference in the Spring.
 

Iowa Civil Rights Commission Revising Guidance on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Public Accommodations

The Iowa Civil Rights Commission plans to revise guidance on how Iowans can comply with the 2007 Iowa amendment adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the state’s non-discrimination law. Recently, the Alliance Defending Freedom legal group has challenged 2008 wording from the Commission which gives the false impression that churches must comply with the non-discrimination law in their religious activities and worship services.
The wording from the 2008 brochure refers to church services as if this means worship services. See below:
Iowa Church Case
“A church service open to the public” is the problematic phrase. This wording sounds like the Sunday worship service which for nearly all Christian churches are open to the public. However, Iowa Civil Rights Commission executive director Kristin Johnson told me that the word “services” was drawn from the Iowa statute and refers to economic goods and services and not worship meetings.
In response to public concern over the meaning of the phrase, Johnson told me today that the guidance from the Commission will be revised saying, “We are in the process of revising our publication and appreciate the fact that it was brought to our attention. It has not been the intention of the Iowa Civil Rights Commission to mislead anyone with respect to the Commission’s enforcement of the law.”
Johnson also clarified that the guidance brochure published by the Commission has been around since 2008. Earlier, I reported that the brochure was from 2012. However, Johnson said the guidance was written and published in 2008 but had a 2012 date because the brochure was migrated to new digital storage in 2012.
Even with the change in language, Erik Stanley of Alliance Defending Freedom told me today that the lawsuit will continue. He said he believes Iowa’s law is unconstitutional and should be challenged. The churches involved wanted to create facility use policies and ADF believes a lawsuit will help get certainty for them.

Church Files Suit Against Iowa Civil Rights Commission Over 2007 Law Change

Twitter was abuzz a couple of days ago with outrage over a brochure from the Iowa Civil Right Commission which provided guidance on how to comply with a 2007 change in Iowa law to forbid discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. At first, I thought the law had recently been changed but later learned that the law was changed in 2007 and the brochure was first published in 2012. Here is some of the reaction. Clearly the tweeters also thought the change was recent.


Let me repeat, the Iowa law went into effect in 2007 and the guidance was issued in 2012. The Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision had nothing to do with Iowa’s non-discrimination law.
Here is another revelation. In the nine years the law has been on the books, not one complaint has been filed against a church. Kristin Johnson, Executive Director of the Iowa Civil Rights Commission told me, “We’ve never considered any complaint on this issue in the 9 years since the statute was amended.”
Given the urgency of the stories about the Iowa brochure, I thought the document had been recently published and the issue was new.
As it turns out, Ms. Johnson is confused about why the Alliance Defending Freedom brought a suit now. ADF did not reply to an email I sent yesterday evening. Johnson said:

We don’t know what raised this issue. This statute was amended to add these protected classes (sexual orientation and gender identity) in 2007 and has been in effect since then. The Iowa Civil Rights Commission has not done anything to suggest it would be enforcing these laws against ministers in the pulpit, and there has been no new publication or statement from the ICRC raising the issue.

As to the language in the 2012 brochure, Ms. Johnson did acknowledge ambiguity. Here is the section about churches:
Iowa Church Case
The portion that is unclear is the sentence: “Where qualifications are not related to a bona fide religious purpose, churches are still subject to the law’s provisions. (e.g. a child care facility operated at a church or a church service open to the public). (emphasis added)” This makes it sound as if the Commission will enforce the law during a public church service, i.e., during Sunday or other worship services. However, Ms. Johnson told me that is not what the phrasing means. She said:

The term “Services” comes from the statute and is not intended to refer to worship or religious services. It was intended to be used in the general sense as provided in Iowa Code Chapter 216. The brochure was apparently intended to be a “FAQ” of sorts and an attempt to explain some of the legal terms. A less ambiguous way to word this might have been “services provided by a church to the public.”

The code reads:

“Public accommodation” means each and every place, establishment, or facility of whatever kind, nature, or class that caters or offers services, facilities, or goods for a fee or charge to nonmembers of any organization or association utilizing the place, establishment, or facility, provided that any place, establishment, or facility that caters or offers services, facilities, or goods to the nonmembers gratuitously shall be deemed a public accommodation if the accommodation receives governmental support or subsidy

The word “services” doesn’t mean worship services as is being commonly reported in press accounts of the Iowa guidance. Instead, it refers to the provision of a good or service in the economic sense. If a church allows a non-religious group to hold a bake sale or rents out a part of the building to a group that offers goods or services, the law would apply. However, using the example of a day care ministry, Ms. Johnson told me that “the question there would be whether that day care was provided by a bona fide religious institution and served a bona fide religious purpose.” On the other hand, the commission might look at the situation if a church leased their building to a day care business which operated without a bona fide religious purpose.
For some, this enforcement will still be unacceptable. In any case, the narrative that Iowa has recently initiated a move against worship services and religious freedom in church just doesn’t match up with the facts.

Hillary's Emails and the Case of Navy Man Bryan Nishimura

It appears all but certain that Hillary Clinton will not face federal charges over her “extremely careless” handling of emails. FBI Director Comey gave her a stern public reprimand but that came with no recommendations for other consequences. Comey also asserted that no prosecutor would take up her case with the set of facts as the FBI had uncovered them. He may be right. However, others have done very similar things and been prosecuted. One such case is Bryan Nishimura.
Nishimura, a Navy Reserve Commander, violated 18 U.S.C. § 1924 pertaining to the “unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents and materials.” According to court documents, beginning in 2007 while in Afghanistan, Nishimura downloaded classified documents on to his personal devices. He then brought that information back to the United States when he service in Afghanistan ended. The FBI found the classified documents on an unclassified server in his home. As with Clinton, the FBI found no evidence that Nishimura intended to distribute the classified information. He had work related classified information stored on unauthorized servers without intent to distribute. He was extremely careless.
He also faced consequences. Nishimura was fined $7500, placed on probation, forced to give up his security clearance and barred from applying for security clearance in the future.
The relevant statute reads:

§ 1924. Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material (a) Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.

The federal complaint against Nishimura reads:

The United States Attorney charges:
THAT BRYAN H. NISHIMURA, defendant herein, from on or about January 2007 through April 2012, while deployed outside of the United States on active military duty with the United States Navy Reserve in Afghanistan and thereafter at his residence located in the County of Sacramento, State and Eastern District of California, being an officer and employee of the United States, specifically: a United States Navy Reserve Commander, and, by virtue of his office and employment as such, becoming possessed of documents and materials containing classified information of the United States, specifically: CLASSIFIED United States Army records, did knowingly remove such documents and materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents and materials at his residence in the County of Sacramento, an unauthorized 2 location, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1924(a), a Class A misdemeanor.

Could we not substitute Hillary Clinton’s name in this paragraph?
According to FBI Director Comey, Clinton sent emails which were classified at the time she sent them.

From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification.

Clinton told the public she did not send classified emails. These emails were stored on vulnerable servers. Comey added:

Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.
For example, seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the same matters. There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation. In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as Secret by the U.S. Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on e-mail (that is, excluding the later “up-classified” e-mails).
None of these e-mails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these e-mails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at Departments and Agencies of the U.S. Government—or even with a commercial service like Gmail.

Like Nishimura, Clinton housed documents (emails) on unclassified personal servers and she should have known better.
Is the difference in outcome because Nishimura downloaded classified digital records and briefings to a device and stored them at his home and Clinton’s documents were classified documents of the email variety? Or is the difference because Clinton is a Democrat running for president and Nishimura was a Navy Reservist?
In Nishimura’s case, he admitted his deeds. Mrs. Clinton told the public she didn’t send classified information. The FBI says she did. The Associated Press has a take down of those claims. Seems like she needs to address her statements which conflict with the FBI’s investigation.
If her defense is that she didn’t know she was breaking the law, it doesn’t help to inspire confidence in her competence.
I am not an attorney but as a layman reviewing Nishimura’s case and the FBI statement about Clinton, I think Nishimura should consider asking for a pardon. Or alternatively, the American people should consider assigning Nishimura’s punishment to Mrs. Clinton: no additional security clearance or access to even more classified information.