The state claims churches are a”public accommodation.”But the state’s interpretation could be used by bureaucrats to bar churches from making “unwelcome” public comments during an activity the commission deems not to have a “bona fide religious purpose.”
The state commission also claims the state law demands that people be given access to church restrooms and locker rooms according to “gender identity.”
The new brief in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa said the commission’s “overreach is entirely predictable in light of Iowa’s constitutionally flawed definition of public accommodation, which clearly encompasses churches. The commission has twice tried to inform ‘churches’ and then ‘places of worship’ what activities will bring them under the act. But in doing so, the commission only highlights how the act interferes into the internal affairs of houses of worship, and ...
