A discrimination complaint in Alaska
filed against a women’s shelter took a bizarre turn when a second complaint was
filed against the attorney hired to defend the shelter.
The legal stand-off began in January
at Downtown Hope Center (DHC), located in Anchorage, when Timothy Coyle was
turned away from sheltering at the faith-based facility. He identifies as a
transgender woman, named Samantha, and ‘Samantha’ filed a complaint with the
Anchorage Equal Rights Commission (AERC).
DHC lawyered up and hired veteran Anchorage
attorney Kevin G. Clarkson. As attorneys
are accustomed to do, Clarkson filed a response on behalf of the DHC, defending
its actions on the grounds that a shelter for battered, traumatized women
shouldn’t be forced to accept a biological male under its roof.
Benjamin Bull, an attorney for First
Liberty Institute (FLI), tells OneNewsNow
that the discrimination claims became “truly bizarre” when the AERC then filed a
complaint about Clarkson after he was quoted in a local newspaper about the
legal fight.
Clarkson is now being represented by FLI,
which is asking the AERC to drop its complaint against the Anchorage attorney.
The AERC’s executive director, Pamela
Basler, wrote that Clarkson has been “identified as the source” of published
statements – a newspaper article – in which he claimed in the article that a
biological male should not be allowed to be sheltered in the DHC, an Anchorage
newspaper reported in June.
According to Bull, the AERC has “tried
to basically separate the Hope Center’s lawyer – disqualify him from
representing the Hope Center - by filing essentially criminal charges against
him for violating the law and in turn trying to censor him.”
Bull tells OneNewsNow that AERC’s legal action raises an obvious legal
question: How can an attorney represent a client if there is no allowance to publically
defend the client’s action in a newspaper article?
Rev.
Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
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