Ladies who frequent the Macy’s department store chain may be wondering if they are safe shopping at the popular retailer after news that a Macy’s clerk in San Antonio, Texas, was fired for refusing to allow a cross-dressing man into a women’s fitting room to try on clothes.
According to Liberty Counsel, a conservative legal advocacy group, Macy’s clerk Natalie Johnson said she witnessed the man walking out of the women’s fitting room and informed him that he could not return there to try on more clothing because the fitting room was for women only.
Much to her surprise — and disbelief — the man, who was wearing make-up and girl’s clothing, assured Johnson that he was, indeed, a woman. When Johnson adamantly refused to allow the cross-dressing young man to return to the women’s dressing room, he and the five individuals accompanying him let loose with an expletive-laced verbal assault, informing the clerk that Macy’s is “LGBT friendly,” and she was discriminating against the man.
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To this news, recounted Liberty Counsel, “Johnson replied that Macy’s is also non-discriminatory toward religion, and that it would go against her religious beliefs to lie that he was a woman or compromise with homosexuality. The group then demanded to speak with a manager.”
Predictably, upon seeing the lay of the political/moral landscape, Macy’s management promptly folded under the “LGBT” outrage. Confronted by a Macy’s manager over her reasonable response to the transvestite’s skulking about in the women’s fitting area, Johnson explained that her Christian beliefs forbade her from allowing a man — whatever his misconceptions regarding his sexuality — to violate a clear moral principle.
But Macy’s had already reached an understanding of sorts with homosexual activists who advocate on behalf of cross-dressers. “Johnson’s boss referred her to Macy’s LGBT policy which allows ‘transgender’ people to change in any dressing room they want,” recounted Liberty Counsel. “However, Johnson pointed out that the same policy also protects against religious discrimination and, in this case, it protects her right to her beliefs that were being violated.”
In the Macy’s worldview, the rights of homosexuals apparently trump those of the faithful, and when Johnson informed the manager that she could not in good conscience comply with the store’s “LGBT” policy, she was terminated from her job.
Recalling the incident, Johnson said, “I had to either comply with Macy’s or comply with God.” She added that “I couldn’t lie and say that he was a woman. I’m going to be accountable to what I say to my Lord Jesus.”
In response to the incident, Melissa Goff, a spokesperson for the department store chain, assured one and all that “at Macy’s we recognize and appreciate the diversity of our customers and associates.”
On its website, the retailer boasts its warm embrace of homosexuality, noting that it has received a 100 percent rating on the Corporate Equality Index of the aggressively pro-homosexual Human Rights Campaign. It is a work in progress, however, since just last year Macy’s was sued by a “transgender” male after he was fired from his job in the cosmetics department of a California Macy’s.
Predictably, “LGBT” mouthpieces applauded Johnson’s termination, arguing that it was the right response for Macy’s to make. Writing on the lesbian-themed website Lezgetreal.com, Bridgette LaVictoire opined that Johnson “showed that she could not distinguish between religious belief and religious tyranny and decided to deny someone the right to use the facilities that they are entitled to under Macy’s policies…. What Johnson did was engage in harassment of an individual who is trans. What she got was fired.”
Chuck Smith of the pro-homosexual Equality Texas made the absurd — and biologically false — observation that a “transsexual woman is a woman,” adding that “if the employee’s religious beliefs keep her from carrying out her functions on the job, then she should find another job.”
Liberty Counsel’s Matthew Staver had a somewhat different take. “Macy’s policy which allows men to use the women’s dressing room is fraught with problems,” he observed, noting that the retailer “has essentially opened women’s dressing rooms to every man.”
In addition to violating basic moral decency, Macy’s is opening itself up to potential legal action, Staver said. “To me, it’s a liability waiting to happen,” he told MySanAntonio.com. “It’s just a matter of time that a man goes into a female fitting room and watches women undress or, even worse, rapes a woman.”
Staver said that the whole episode “represents what we’re going to see around the country if we have this LGBT agenda continue to advance. It literally has become the theater of the absurd.”
Liberty Counsel is encouraging individuals to contact Macy’s and let its corporate management know that their response to Natalie Johnson’s moral stand is unacceptable. Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren can be reached by e-mail at [email protected], by phone at 800-264-0069 or 513-398-5221, and by fax at 513-573-2049.
Photo: A Macy’s store in San Diego
