CNA reached out to the City of Jacksonville but a spokesperson declined to comment on litigation.
“Free speech is for everyone,” Rachel Csutoros, legal counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, said in a statement. The bookstore is receiving pro bono legal services from ADF for this lawsuit.
“Americans should be free to say what they believe without fear of government punishment,” Csutoros continued. “Christie [DeTrude], owner of Queen of Angels Catholic Bookstore, gladly serves everyone, but she can’t speak messages that go against her religious beliefs. Yet Jacksonville is illegally mandating Queen of Angels abandon its religious beliefs — the very faith that motivates the store to open its doors to customers every day.”
The city changed its anti-discrimination laws in 2017 to include discrimination based on “the gender-related identity, expression, or appearance of a person.” Although a court struck the law down for technical reasons related to the procedure by which it was adopted, the city council reintroduced and approved the language again in 2020.
According to city law, a person can be liable for discrimination through “difference in treatment” or “unlawful separation, segregation, or distinction directly or indirectly against a person because of race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, disability, marital status, or familial status.”
The law applies to private businesses that are available to the public, such as the bookstore, and prohibits them from displaying information that suggests a person’s patronage is “unwelcome, objectionable, [or] unacceptable.”
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