Charlie Butts | August 22, 2013
An Iowa church stands ready and waiting to assist small businesses and church officials targeted by “human rights” commission across the state.
Homosexual “marriage” became legal in Iowa in 2009 after the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously upheld a lower-court decision in favor of six same-sex couples who had been denied marriage licenses and claimed that denial was unconstitutional. Since then, several small-business owners in Iowa have suffered backlash from state-sanctioned human rights commissions with accusations of “discrimination” against sexual behaviors that violate their religious freedoms of conscience.
Pastor Cary Gordon of Cornerstone World Outreach in Sioux City has issued a press release to churches statewide, offering them legal assistance – if necessary.
“If they are prosecuted by [these commissions], they just need to call our church offices and let us know that it’s happening,” he tells OneNewsNow. “We’ve partnered with Liberty Institute in Texas, and we’re going to make sure that they have the very best defense. And I think a lot of business owners are very concerned about the HRCs in Iowa because of their sting operations basically entrapping people.”
Gordon points to a Des Moines Register report last year citing 27 instances in which landlords were baited by the Iowa Civil Rights Commission into breaking non-discrimination ordinances so that they then could be accused of illegally discriminating against housing applicants. He has reason to believe HRCs could conduct similar sting operations.
“… Then after the business owner is notified [they are] going to be prosecuted for this and they get nervous and they find out you have to put down a $20,000 retainer to get an attorney to defend yourself, the HRC comes back and says Now listen, if you’ll just make a donation to our cause we’ll drop the charges.”
The pastor states businesses and churches don’t have to be victimized by a shakedown because Liberty Institute provides free legal assistance.
Gordon is the same pastor whose family was threatened with death by a human rights activist who had been appointed to the Sioux City Human Rights Commission and has prosecutorial authority.