The spa owners refused to change their admission policy, which they said was rooted in Korean tradition and Christian beliefs.
SAN FRANCISCO—The Olympus Spa, a women-only Korean-style spa in Washington State, which was forced via legal means to allow male customers who identify as women, is seeking re-hearing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
The case is centered on a state law that bars discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Many of the services provided at the spa require nudity, and all the onsite staff are female. Allowing a person with male body parts to partake of the services would violate the Christian beliefs of the spa owners, they said.
A May 29 Ninth Circuit opinion by a four-judge panel had already dismissed the spa’s claims that its First Amendment rights had been violated, affirming the decision previously made in a lower court.
“The Spa may have other avenues to challenge the enforcement action. But whatever recourse it may have, that relief cannot come from the First Amendment,” the opinion states.
The re-hearing request centered instead on an “expressive association claim,” according to a petition document filed on June 24 and obtained by The Epoch Times.
“We respectfully disagree with the Court’s position that there are no First Amendment interests at stake for the Spa,” Kevin Snider, lead attorney of the Pacific Justice Institute representing the plaintiffs, said in an email to The Epoch Times. “Safeguarding the dignity of unclothed women in their intimate spaces implicates the right to association and the free exercise of religion. We are committed to pressing forward to vindicate those rights.”
In late 2020, a man complained to the Washington Human Rights Commission (HRC) that the spa was violating Washington’s Law Against Discrimination (WLAD) by refusing service to man who identified as a transgender woman.
The spa owners refused to change their admission policy, which they said was rooted in Korean tradition and Christian beliefs.
The owners, employees, and patrons of the Olympus Spa launched a lawsuit against the HRC executive director and its civil rights investigator, alleging that the state was infringing on their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, free exercise of religion, and freedom of association.
By Lear Zhou
