When a gay couple tried to give back to their small town's local church, they were met with hate. Now the two are testing the waters of Washington state's antidiscrimination policy, to see how it truly holds up.
What started out as a kindhearted gesture on the part of a gay couple who sought to volunteer at a free hot meal program may end up testing a 2006 Washington State law banning discrimination against LGBT people.
Tad Erichsen and John Footh, both 43, say they were denied volunteer work at His Supper Table, a free hot meal program, in March. The program, operated out of the Church of the Nazarene in Long Beach, Wash., describes itself as a nonprofit coalition of several local Christian churches. The two claim they were asked to leave when Mike Renfro, then meal program director, found out the men were gay.
Shortly after they arrived to volunteer, Erichsen and Footh say, they helped unload a vehicle containing food for the meal program but were abruptly pulled aside and questioned. They both were first asked if they were gay. When they answered yes, they were told to leave the premises.
"I said, 'I don't know how this has anything to do with feeding the homeless or people in need,'" Erichsen says.
According to Erichsen and Footh, Renfro said they would "create a hostile work environment" and asked them to leave. Erichsen and Footh noticed menacing glares from the other volunteers as the meal program director escorted them to their car.
"They just outed us and came right out and said we were not wanted there," Footh says. "This was one of the ugliest things like this to ever happen to us. They made us feel like we are not good enough to help other people because of our sexual orientation, and to me that is totally wrong."
Erichsen and Footh
Washington State Human Rights Commission executive director Marc Brenman says the couple's being denied the opportunity to volunteer based on their sexual orientation might be illegal.
"This is the first time I've heard of this particular type of situation, involving denial to volunteer, in light of our new law," Brenman said. "It is a real shame people are being denied the opportunity to volunteer, since we are always being told volunteerism is a good thing." Brenman added that most nonprofit organizations rely heavily, if not solely, on volunteers, and that the organizations are only "hurting themselves and the public" if and when they deny people the opportunity to volunteer based on a characteristic such as sexual orientation.
Brenman said since the law passed in 2006, his commission receives more than 40 calls a month from LGBT people. Approximately four to five of those calls result in formal complaints. A number of complaints also come from people with HIV and AIDS, a group that is specifically protected under the law.
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