\n\tWhen Maria Goldstein ordered 500 copies of a flyer at Office Depot online on August 20, 2015, she was in for a big surprise. The flyer was meant to be
\n\thanded out in conjunction with a weeklong prayer and fasting campaign at her church aimed at educating people and changing opinions about abortion. It
\n\tcontained statistics about abortion in the U.S. in general and the nonprofit organization Planned Parenthood in particular, as well as \u201cA Prayer for the
\n\tConversion of Planned Parenthood,\u201d written by Fr. Frank Pavone, the national director of Priests for Life and a prominent pro-life leader. She intended to
\n\tpick her order up at the Schaumburg, Illinois, Office Depot, which was close to her home, but she received a phone message from a store employee saying
\n\tthat he needed to discuss the order with her.<\/p>\n
\n\tUpon calling the store, she was informed that her flyer couldn\u2019t be printed, because it violated corporate policy, though no one could tell her precisely
\n\twhat that policy was or how her flyer violated it. She was invited to use the self-serve copiers to print the flyer herself. This solution wasn\u2019t
\n\tconvenient, and although she was able to have her flyer printed through a different venue, Goldstein felt discriminated against.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIn the beginning stages,\u201d says Goldstein, \u201cI was really confused. I couldn\u2019t believe that they\u2019d be discriminating against me based on my religion. I just
\n\tcouldn\u2019t believe it. And I certainly believed that when I contacted someone at Office Depot, they were going to make it right. I thought they\u2019d see there
\n\twas nothing wrong with the flyer, and they\u2019d offer to print it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tRepeated attempts to reach officials at the store, however, were unsuccessful until she contacted the Thomas More Society, a national public interest law
\n\tfirm that provides pro bono legal services in cases that support life, family, and religious liberty. They advised her to make one more attempt, notifying
\n\tOffice Depot that she had retained legal counsel. Not surprisingly, she received a return call the next morning and was told that if material made an
\n\temployee feel uncomfortable, they didn\u2019t have to print it. She was also informed that the store was working on a policy to address similar situations.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s what I was told,\u201d says Goldstein, \u201cbut in the media, Office Depot said the flyer constituted hate speech and implied persecution against employees
\n\tof Planned Parenthood, which was not at all what they told me.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI was very upset when they came out with the terms \u2018hate speech\u2019 and \u2018persecution\u2019 because it\u2019s so much against what I do. I\u2019m a sidewalk counselor at an
\n\tabortion clinic. Every week I go out there, and I counsel women. I offer them help. I have cried with women. I\u2019ve given out information; I\u2019ve given out my
\n\tphone number so they can contact me, and they have.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI\u2019m not against them. I\u2019m not against anybody who\u2019s involved in the abortion business. What I seek and what the prayer [on the flyer] was seeking was
\n\tenlightenment, and to call it hate speech and persecution was so off base it was really insulting.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tWithout assistance from the Thomas More Society, that\u2019s likely how Goldstein\u2019s situation would have ended. Instead, her lawyer, Thomas Olp, wrote to Office
\n\tDepot president Roland Smith, stating that refusal to print Goldstein\u2019s flyer violated public accommodation laws as detailed in the Cook County Human
\n\tRights Ordinance and the Illinois Human Rights Act, which exist to prevent precisely this type of religious discrimination. In fact, all states have
\n\tversions of public accommodation laws, though they do not all protect the same rights. (For a full list by state, see sidebar.)<\/p>\n
\n\tIn Cook County, where the Office Depot that Goldstein attempted to use is located, the Cook County board of commissioners enacted the Cook County Human \n\t\u201cThe public accommodation law requires that you give full service,\u201d says Olp, \u2018full\u2019 meaning that the same service you would give to anybody else, you\u2019ve \n\tOffice Depot\u2019s response to Olp\u2019s letter came via their assistant general counsel, Robert Amicone, who defended Office Depot\u2019s right to refuse service based \n\tHowever, Olp said Office Depot backtracked from their initial response very quickly. It\u2019s possible that had something to do with the story going viral in \n\t\u201cWe\u2019re very happy that Office Depot changed its mind,\u201d says Olp, \u201cand did it so quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tYou could call it a simple misunderstanding; that\u2019s clearly how Office Depot chose to see it, in the end—officially, at least. You could call it religious \n\t\u201cIt\u2019s the height of political correctness,\u201d says Olp, \u201cto say, \u2018If you don\u2019t tolerate anything that\u2019s legal out there, you\u2019re involved in hate speech; \n\tYou would think that America, being a country comprised primarily of immigrants, a great many of which were fleeing religious oppression, would itself be \n\tDiscrimination has always had a grip on America, and not all types of discrimination are unlawful. But in the area of public accommodation, according to \n\t\u201cLet\u2019s red-circle an area for religious expression, religious liberty,\u201d says Olp, \u201cand not allow it to be closed down further and further by secular \n\tWhile Goldstein is worried that the wording of the apology from Office Depot seems to leave the door open for future problems, she feels blessed that God \n\tGoldstein says she\u2019s learned to trust in what God wants to do, and not back down. \u201cWhen we\u2019re being discriminated against, which seems like it\u2019s happening When Maria Goldstein ordered 500 copies of a flyer at Office Depot online on August 20, 2015, she was in for a big surprise. The flyer was meant to be handed out in conjunction with a weeklong prayer and fasting campaign at her church aimed at educating people and changing opinions about abortion. It contained<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[311],"tags":[143],"class_list":["post-6343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-march-april-2016","tag-march-april-2016"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\tRights Ordinance to prevent \u201cprejudice, intolerance, bigotry, and discrimination occasioned thereby [which] threaten the rights and proper privileges of
\n\tthe county\u2019s inhabitants and menace the institutions and foundation of a free and democratic society.\u201d 1<\/sup> Their ordinance protects the rights of
\n\tpeople such as Maria Goldstein who request services from businesses in the county through public accommodation protections. \u201cPublic accommodation\u201d is
\n\tdefined by the Cook County Human Rights Ordinance as a \u201cperson, place, business establishment, or agency that sells, leases, provides, or offers any
\n\tproduct, facility, or service to the general public in Cook County, regardless of ownership or operation (1) by a public body or agency; (2) for or without
\n\tregard to profit; or (3) for a fee or not for a fee.\u201d2<\/sup><\/sup><\/p>\n
\n\tgot to give to this person, too. You\u2019re offering full service to the public; you\u2019ve got to give it to everybody without unlawful discrimination, which is
\n\tdefined to mean discrimination because of race, religion, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\ton the fact that Fr. Pavone\u2019s prayer could have been a potential copyright violation (grounds for refusal of service because of copyright infringement
\n\tlaws) and that the flyer contained graphic language calling abortion clinics \u201cdeath camps in our midst\u201d and referring to the \u201ckilling of children in the
\n\twomb\u201d and \u201cthe grisly trade in baby body parts.\u201d He characterized the reference to the \u201cevil\u201d of the abortion industry as hate speech and wrote that
\n\tbecause of its graphic content and hate language, the flyer would have violated Office Depot\u2019s policy regardless of its religious expression.<\/p>\n
\n\tthe media. Amicone\u2019s letter arrived on September 11, 2015, a Friday morning, and by early afternoon they had reversed their position. In a letter of the
\n\tsame date, Elisa Garcia, executive vice president and chief legal officer, wrote, \u201cUpon reflection, we believe that reasonable minds may differ on whether
\n\tthe flyer is a violation of the policy, and in that case, we should have found a way to fulfill Ms. Goldstein\u2019s order.\u201d3<\/sup> The letter concluded
\n\twith an apology to Goldstein and an invitation to allow them to fulfill her order, which she did.<\/p>\n
\n\tdiscrimination; that\u2019s how it felt to Maria Goldstein. But whatever you choose to call it, however you choose to view it, you should consider it an early
\n\twarning sign of an infringement of religious liberty and sound the alarm. James Madison, in his \u201cMemorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,\u201d
\n\twrote that it is \u201cproper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens, and one of
\n\tthe noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The free men of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and
\n\tentangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere
\n\tthis lesson too much soon to forget it.\u201d4<\/sup> In a country in which it is becoming increasingly harder to speak what you believe without offending
\n\tsomeone or being accused of \u201chate speech,\u201d in which politically correct phrases are de rigueur, in which standing up for what you believe in is becoming
\n\ttrickier and trickier, it becomes increasingly necessary to take preventative action, as Maria Goldstein did, before precedents are set. You cannot hold
\n\tthe line if you do not first take a stand.<\/p>\n
\n\tyou\u2019re doing something wrong. And if it\u2019s religiously motivated we don\u2019t care. We just think it\u2019s wrong. We\u2019re going to ignore any religious aspect of what
\n\tyou\u2019re doing. Because, after all, religion should be kept in your church. Go into your church and worship, but when you come out into the public square, no
\n\treligion, please.\u2019 That seems to be the secular mentality. And more and more it\u2019s being pushed into the laws.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tmore passionate about religious freedom and less judgmental. Yet this has never been so. There has been discrimination based on religion since its birth.
\n\t\u201cIn newly independent America, there was a crazy quilt of state laws regarding religion. In Massachusetts, only Christians were allowed to hold public
\n\toffice, and Catholics were allowed to do so only after renouncing papal authority. In 1777, New York State\u2019s constitution banned Catholics from public
\n\toffice (and would do so until 1806). In Maryland, Catholics had full civil rights, but Jews did not. Delaware required an oath affirming belief in the
\n\tTrinity. Several states, including Massachusetts and South Carolina, had official, state-supported churches.\u201d5<\/sup> There has, of course, been
\n\tdiscrimination based on race, which prompted an entire civil war, and discrimination based on country of origin: Germany and Japan during World War II, and
\n\tmore recently, anyone whose ethnicity originates in Muslim-majority countries. While anti-Semitism appears to be waning in America, it continues to be a
\n\tpersistent problem.<\/p>\n
\n\tthe Civil Rights Act of 1964, the most comprehensive civil rights legislation in the history of the United States, it is<\/em> unlawful to discriminate
\n\tagainst someone based on race, color, religion, or national origin in any place of public accommodation. If we do not make a stand for religious freedom in
\n\tthe public square, no one will make it for us.<\/p>\n
\n\tbelievers forcing people to essentially keep their mouths shut and not do what Christians need to do, which is to evangelize. Every time you stand up for
\n\treligious liberty, it\u2019s a good thing. It helps people appreciate first, that there is religious liberty, and second, that it needs to be protected by
\n\tpeople who have backbone and are willing to stand up for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\twas able to use the situation. \u201cI set out to pass out 500 flyers to my fellow parishioners, and through this situation, God has allowed me to reach
\n\tthousands of people with the message of truth that the pro-life movement is one of love and peace and hope. That\u2019s what we\u2019re about, and it\u2019s not hate, and
\n\tit\u2019s not persecutory.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tmore and more, we can\u2019t back down. We\u2019ve got to stand up for our religious liberty and for our God, quite honestly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"