Christian ministries failed to convince a Virginia judge last week that they are suffering ongoing harm from a new state law banning employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
“Is there an actual controversy here?” Loudoun County Circuit Judge James Plowman asked the lawyer for Calvary Road Baptist Church, Community Fellowship Church, Community Christian Academy and pro-life ministry Care Net at the Friday hearing.
They had made “speculative claims” about how the Virginia Values Act (SB 868), which took effect about a year ago, would be enforced, the judge said. “There are not reasonably foreseeable actions to be taken against these [religious] institutions” from the language of the law itself.