Updated: LACofFD member refuses to raise Pride Flag, or white flag, to gender ideology

As recently reported by The Catholic News Agency, Catholic World Report, and other sites, Captain Jeffrey Little, a devout evangelical Christian, was a member of the Los Angeles County Fire Department (LACofFD) for more than twenty-two years. Little sued the LACofFD after officials rescinded his requested religious accommodation to not have to raise the Progress Pride Flag at the lifeguard stations he oversees and suspended him from duty.

Seeds of the controversy were planted in March 2023 when the LA County Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution requiring all of its facilities, including lifeguard stations, to fly the “Progress Pride” flag during June. In requesting an accommodation, Little informed officials he could not raise the flag because doing so would convey an “endorsement and or celebration of the messages on various sexual behaviors (among other topics) associated with the [flag].” Instead, he asked that someone else raise the flag.

Officials initially granted Little’s request on June 19, 2023, but rescinded it two days later. On having his accommodation revoked, Little claimed a superior ordered him to raise the flag, while another told him, “Your religious beliefs do not matter; you are an LA County employee.” On June 23, 2023 officials suspended Little from the LACofFD’s background investigation unit, which reviews emergency incidents, causing him a significant loss of overtime, income, and prestige. Little’s complaint thus stated that after requesting the accommodation, he thought he “was being targeted or entrapped by [a superior officer and that his] religious beliefs were not being taken seriously.”

Little also alleged that unauthorized individuals leaked his request for an accommodation.

In fact, when news of his request leaked, on June 21, 2023, Little and his two daughters received a death threat at their home stating “[w]e know about your cute little girls and aren’t afraid to rape the s*** out of them if you don’t honor us. You are a fascist pig and deserve to die.”

Little’s attorneys filed suit on May 24, 2024, in a federal trial court in California challenging the revocation of his accommodation and suspension because he “adheres to traditional Christian beliefs regarding the moral illicitness of same-sex activity.” The complaint added “[t]he views commonly associated with the Progress Pride flag on marriage, sex, and family are in direct conflict with Captain Little’s bona fide and sincerely held religious beliefs on the same subjects.”

The forty-page complaint and almost one-hundred pages of accompanying materials submitted on Little’s behalf seek back pay, including wages and benefits; reinstatement; that the LACofFD grant his religious exemption; that officials discontinue policies breaching religious freedom; and requiring staff members who violated his rights to undergo training about protecting religious freedom.

Little’s complaints included evidence that officials ignored his statutory rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act for not granting his reasonable religious accommodation, retaliating against him by investigating his having lowered the flag, and not safeguarding him from retaliation, discrimination, and harassment. The complaint further alleged that officials ignored Little’s First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion and the California constitution’s guarantee to the “Free exercise and enjoyment of religion without discrimination or preference.”

The final charge was that officials infringed on Little’s First Amendment speech rights by seeking to compelled him to communicate a message he did not believe and subjecting him to viewpoint discrimination because of his faith.

Let’s now consider Captain Little’s request for a religious accommodation based on his First Amendment freedoms to practice his faith freely and from compelled speech. In 2023, in Groff v. DeJoy, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that employers had to make reasonable accommodations to meet the religious needs of their employees. Following Groff, officials easily could have granted Little’s cost-free requested accommodation by having another firefighter to raise the flag. Moreover, officials’ harassment and treatment of Little during investigations violated his religious freedom rights under the federal and California constitutions and statutes by discriminating against him because of his beliefs by attempting to force him to act in a manner inconsistent with his faith.

As to compelled speech, LACofFD officials ignored long-standing precedent starting in 1943 when the Supreme Court asserted “[i]f there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

Most recently in 303 Creative v. Elenis the Court reasoned “[t]he Free Speech Clause…protect[s] the ‘freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think,’” specifying that individuals cannot be compelled to communicate ideas with which they disagree. It is nothing short of incredulous that officials ignored these clear standards in attempting to compel Little to participate in communicating a message he did not endorse when someone else could have easily raised the flag.

Of course, all are entitled to mutual respect regardless of their lifestyles and beliefs, something LACofFD officials denied Little. While people can and, of course, do disagree, they should be able to do so peacefully and reasonably. At a time when “hate has no home here” lawn signs and posters abound, all people of goodwill should unequivocally condemn the vile death threat Captain Little and his daughters received regardless of their positions about the flag.

As to the flag posting, what did, or do, LACofFD officials hope to accomplish in denying Little’s requested reasonable, cost-free accommodation under DeGroff, while treating him so poorly. Would, for instance, officials have required Jewish or Muslim firefighters to have prepared meals including pork during overnight tours of duty in light of their religious beliefs? If not, why trample Little’s rights?

Unfortunately, this situation calls to mind Justice Alito’s prescient dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges wherein the Supreme Court discovered a heretofore unknown Fourteenth Amendment right to “same-sex unions”. Alito reasoned:

I assume that those who cling to old beliefs will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes, but if they repeat those views in public, they will risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employers, and schools.

Given the increasingly harsh tone of disagreements in the United States, how to avoid the bleak future Alito feared as to religious freedom? Will religious freedom become a relic of a bygone era as cultural orthodoxy to the ideology du jour trump religious freedom? Can people of goodwill on both sides of debates, such as the one in LA County, still reach amicable, mutually acceptable solutions? Is respect for the faiths of others and freedom of religion and speech, still at the heart of what it means to be American?

Update: Shortly after this piece was posted, Thomas More Society released a statement with the following information:

The Los Angeles County Fire Department has agreed to partially accommodate lifeguard Captain Jeffrey Little for his religious beliefs and not require him to raise the ‘Progress Pride Flag’ as a part of his job for the remainder of June, which they have designated as ‘Pride Month.’ This partial concession follows a federal lawsuit brought on Little’s behalf, by Thomas More Society attorneys, against the Department after months of the county’s stonewalling.

The Fire Department has made assurances that Little would not be personally responsible for the raising or lowering of the Progress Pride Flag, because he either will be assigned to stations that are unable to fly the Progress Pride Flag throughout June, or he will be able to trade shifts to such stations.

The county, however, continues to refuse to give Little a full and complete religious accommodation as requested in the lawsuit filed on May 24, 2024. This would be accomplished by granting a standing religious accommodation to permanently and comprehensively protect Little’s religious liberty rights.

Read the entire statement.

(Editor’s note: This essay had incorrectly referred to the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) when it should have referred to the Los Angeles County Fire Department (LACofFD). We apologize for the error.)