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11th Circuit strikes down Florida megachurch challenge to hate group label

An evangelical Christian ministry listed as an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center was not discriminated against when its application to fundraise through Amazon’s charitable website was denied, the court ruled.

ATLANTA (CN) — The 11th Circuit on Wednesday struck down a Florida evangelical Christian ministry’s claim that it was discriminated against and defamed after the Southern Poverty Law Center labeled it a hate group, causing Amazon to deny its application to fundraise through the online retailing giant’s charitable website.

A unanimous three-judge panel of the Atlanta-based appeals court upheld an Alabama federal judge's September 2019 decision to dismiss the lawsuit brought by Fort Lauderdale-based Coral Ridge Ministries Media (also known as D. James Kennedy Ministries) against Amazon, the AmazonSmile Foundation and the SPLC.

In a 15-page opinion, the panel found that Coral Ridge’s defamation claim against the Alabama-based SPLC fails because it did not show that the organization “acted with actual malice” when it listed the ministry on its “hate map" as an anti-LGBTQ hate group.

“Coral Ridge did not sufficiently plead facts that give rise to a reasonable inference that SPLC ‘actually entertained serious doubts as to the veracity' of its hate group definition and that definition’s application to Coral Ridge, or that SPLC was ‘highly aware’ that the definition and its application was ‘probably false’,” U.S. Circuit Judge Charles Wilson, a Bill Clinton appointee, wrote on behalf of the panel.

The SPLC’s designation of Coral Ridge as a hate group led Amazon to deny the ministry's application to fundraise as a charitable organization through AmazonSmile.

The AmazonSmile program gives eligible charities 0.5% of a customer’s purchase price if the customer shops on smile.amazon.com and picks the charity as a recipient.

Eligible charity organizations must be registered and in good standing with the IRS as a nonprofit. They also cannot engage in or support violence, illegal activities or intolerance.

During oral arguments in the case in December, an attorney for the ministry railed against the “hate group” designation and told the panel that Amazon and the SPLC needed to be “held responsible for that incorrect statement.”

Coral Ridge admitted in its lawsuit that it opposes same-sex marriage and the "homosexual agenda" based on its religious beliefs.

A representative for the ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday evening.

The panel also ruled Wednesday that Coral Ridge’s religious discrimination claim under Title II of the Civil Rights Act was a non-starter.

Title II ensures equal access to services and public accommodations — including hotels, restaurants and places of entertainment — and prohibits discrimination or segregation on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin.

Coral Ridge has argued that Amazon is liable under Title II because it is a place of public accommodation and AmazonSmile is a "service" of Amazon. The ministry claimed that Amazon unfairly excluded it from benefitting under the AmazonSmile program based on its religious views.

But Coral Ridge's interpretation of Title II runs up against Amazon's First Amendment rights, the panel found.

Amazon is engaging in expressive conduct under the First Amendment when it decides which charities to support, the ruling stated.

Coral Ridge’s reading of the law would therefore violate the retailer's rights by “essentially forcing Amazon to donate to organizations it does not support."

"Applying Title II in the way Coral Ridge proposes would not further the statute’s purpose of ‘secur[ing] for all citizens the full enjoyment of facilities described in the Act which are open to the general public.’ United States v. DeRosier, 473 F.2d 749, 751 (5th Cir. 1973). It would instead ‘modify the content of [Amazon’s] expression’—and thus modify Amazon’s 'speech itself'," Wilson wrote. "This we cannot do."

Wilson was joined on the panel by U.S. Circuit Judge Britt Grant, a Donald Trump appointee, and Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Gerald Tjoflat, a Gerald Ford appointee.

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Categories / Appeals, Civil Rights, Religion

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