Kentucky Children’s Home seeks dismissal

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Attorneys for Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children (KBHC) have filed a motion calling for a lawsuit filed in April by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to be dismissed. ACLU officials filed the suit in federal court on behalf of a former Children’s Home employee fired in 1998 because she is a homosexual.

The motion to dismiss challenges the ACLU’s claim that the child care agency’s hiring practices against homosexuals constitute religious discrimination. Such a ruling by the court would force “religious organizations to hire homosexuals while employers without a religious affiliation remain free not to do so,” the response notes.

The ACLU claims that state funds channeled to the KBHC for child care services is a violation of the First Amendment’s establishment of religion clause. Calling that argument “fundamentally flawed,” attorneys for the KBHC countered, “The establishmnet clause does not bar the funding of religious organizations merely because the organization has a religious inspiration and affiliation.”