It used to be that you could keep your religious beliefs about sexual orientation to yourself. Not anymore. As a new court ruling shows, if you’re the defendant in a sexual-orientation discrimination lawsuit, a court may want to get inside your head in order to help prove WHY you are discriminating.

Case In Point: Jewelry store employee John Fairchild found himself fired just one day after he told the store owner that he was gay and his daughter was a lesbian. Fairchild says the owner was known to openly declare gays and lesbians “repulsive” and often quoted the Bible claiming homosexuality was a sin. Fairchild sued under New York state law for discrimination based on sexual orientation.

During the discovery phase, Fairchild’s lawyer sought to quiz the store owner about his religious beliefs. Specifically, he wanted the owner to answer these three questions:

• Does he believe “gays and lesbians are doomed to eternal damnation?”
• Does he believe “homosexuality is a sin against God?”
• Does he believe homosexuals are “repulsive?”

The store owner refused to answer, arguing that the questions violated his constitutional rights of privacy and freedom of religion. Plus, he said, Fairchild could twist those answers to prove the owner intended to discriminate.

In the end, the judge ordered the store owner must answer the questions and divulge his religious beliefs. The judge said that although courts should closely guard citizens’ religious freedoms, a court can compel people to divulge their religious beliefs whenever “it appears that one’s religion is relied upon to form a basis of discrimination against a person who is a member of a protected class."