Trump judges allow Christians to sue Alaska Airlines after firing for opposing LGBTQ+ bill
Alaska Airlines (Getty Images, stock)
A US Appeals Court with three Trump-appointed judges has allowed two former-Alaska Airlines flight attendants to sue the company after they were fired for opposing an LGBTQ+ bill.
According to Reuters, plaintiffs Lacey Smith and Marli Brown were dismissed after posting comments on Alaska’s intranet in response to the airline showing support for the Equality Act in Congress in 2021.
The bill would protect queer and trans people from anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations, credit and other areas.
In response to Alaska Airline’s post, Smith wrote: “As a company, do you think it’s possible to regulate morality?”
Meanwhile, Brown made a separate post saying that the Equality Act would infringe on women’s rights, enable sexual predators, and was “endangering the Church [and] encouraging suppression of religious freedom”.
Alaska Airlines deleted Brown and Smith’s posts before issuing a statement, which said that the company is in favour of protecting LGBTQ+ people from discrimination and that they “expect their employees to live by these same values”.
The plaintiffs were then fired from the company following an investigation for violating their employer’s anti-discrimination and harassment policy.
Smith and Brown initially attempted to sue Alaska Airlines in 2022, accusing it of discriminating against them because of their religious beliefs, but Seattle US District Judge Barbara Rothstein dismissed the case.
Judge Rothstein ruled that the firings were not discriminatory as Smith and Brown’s posts on the intranet had not been religious in nature.
However, Rothstein’s dismissal order was reversed on 1 July 2026 by the 9th Circuit. The judges argued that there was enough evidence regarding Brown and Smith’s Christian faith to suggest that it motivated the airline to dismiss them. A jury will next decide whether or not Alaska Airlines broke the law.
Circuit Judge Daniel Bress, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, wrote in court documents: “It did not matter whether Brown could support her post with chapter and verse from an authoritative religious text.
“Nor is the religious nature of Brown’s post undermined by the fact that more than one religion may share in the same underlying views, or that the beliefs expressed could be regarded as non-religious human values.”
