The short version is the company came out supporting the LGBTQ+ workers and community.  The two fired workers went on the company intranet and made a point to question it and declare how they felt about the LGBTQ+ people.  Lets just say they were not fans.   So the company investigated and decided they would create a hostile work place.   The first court agreed, but the appeals court said the employee lawsuit could go forward because the airline did not make an effort to accommodate the fired workers religious rights.  So the fact that you are a Christian means you can treat LGBTQ+ co-workers like shit and disregard their very existence based on a mistaken understanding of what their god wants.  Christian belief tRump’s an LGBTQ+ person’s right to exist equally with out discrimination.   Hugs

By Daniel Wiessner

June 25, 20261:30 PM EDTUpdated 18 hours ago

An Alaska Airlines commercial airliner takes-off from Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, California, U.S., November 6, 2025. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights

• Flight attendants fired over intranet posts
• Lower court said comments were not overtly religious, and dismissed case
• But there was enough to let a jury decide, appeals court panel says

June 26 (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court has revived a lawsuit claiming Alaska Airlines (ALKAIR.UL) engaged in religious discrimination by firing two flight attendants who criticized the company’s support ​for expanding legal protections for LGBTQ people.

A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said, opens new tab on Wednesday that there was ‌enough proof that the airline was motivated by the workers’ Christian beliefs when it fired them to let a jury decide whether it broke the law.

The flight attendants in 2021 made separate posts on Alaska Airlines’ employee intranet critical of the company’s backing of the Equality Act, a bill in Congress to prohibit discrimination against gay and transgender people in employment, housing, public accommodations and other areas.

The ​posts were not overtly religious, leading a judge to dismiss the case last year. But Circuit Judge Daniel Bress, who was appointed by Republican President Donald Trump, ​as were the other judges on the panel, wrote for the 9th Circuit that the workers’ comments and the airline’s response ⁠to the posts were enough to show it may have been motivated by their religious beliefs.

“It did not matter whether [one of the plaintiffs] could support her post with chapter ​and verse from an authoritative religious text,” Bress wrote.

The plaintiffs also claim their union, the Association of Flight Attendants, discriminated against them and breached its legal duty to represent ​them by not fighting their termination.

The 9th Circuit on Wednesday revived those claims, and joined two other appeals courts in ruling that federal labor law does not preempt such claims against unions brought under state laws.

Alaska Airlines and the union did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday.

The plaintiffs are represented by the First Liberty Institute, which says it is the largest legal organization in the ​country dedicated exclusively to defending religious liberty. Stephanie Taub, the group’s senior counsel, said the 9th Circuit ruling reinforces legal protections from religious discrimination.

“You cannot be fired because ​your employer does not like your religious beliefs,” she said.

According to court filings, after Alaska Airlines posted online about its support for the Equality Act, plaintiff Lacey Smith wrote in response: “As a ‌company, do ⁠you think it’s possible to regulate morality?”

Another flight attendant, Marli Brown, made a separate, longer post claiming 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 the posts and issued a statement in response, saying the company supported protecting LGBTQ people against discrimination and that “we also expect our employees to live by these same values.” Smith and Brown were then fired after an investigation for violating the airline’s anti-discrimination and harassment policy, court filings showed.

The ​women sued in 2022, accusing Alaska Airlines and ​the union of discriminating against them ⁠because of their Christian beliefs.

U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein in Seattle had dismissed the case, saying the firings were not discriminatory because the flight attendants’ posts were not religious in nature. She also said the federal Railway Labor Act, which regulates the rail ​and airline industries, preempted the plaintiffs’ claims that the union violated Washington and Oregon law.

The 9th Circuit reversed Rothstein’s order. Brown’s ​post specifically mentioned “the Church,” ⁠Bress wrote for the court, and the airline investigated her and Smith together. Both women also cited their religious beliefs in the course of the airline’s investigation, he said.

Bress was joined by Circuit Judge Kenneth Lee in his opinion. Circuit Judge Morgan Christen mostly agreed, but in a partial dissent said she would not have revived Smith’s discrimination claim.

“Alaska would have ⁠had to be ​clairvoyant to know that Smith considered the statement she posted on the company’s internal website to be ​an expression of her faith,” wrote Christen.

The case is Brown v. Alaska Airlines, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 24-3789.

For the plaintiffs: Stephanie Taub and others from First Liberty Institute; Andrew Gould of Holtzman Vogel ​Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak

For Alaska Airlines: Lauren Watts and others from Seyfarth Shaw

For the union: Benjamin Berger and others from Barnard Iglitzin & Lavitt

Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York