Pride flag flap fuels a lawsuit in California

Civil engineer Eric Batman says that walking by his employer’s LGBTQ Pride flag violates his Biblical beliefs on sexuality and gender. To avoid that, he proposed what he thought was a workable solution.

Batman, an employee of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works who works remotely 25% of the time, suggested to his boss that he work remotely for all of June, when his employer flies its LGBTQ flag for Pride month. But the Southern California county has repeatedly denied Batman’s requests.

Batman sued the county last Tuesday, contending that officials have religiously discriminated against him by forcing him to pass by the flag. His employer argues that allowing Batman additional remote work days goes against the employer’s attempts to be inclusive. Batman said the county has unlawfully denied him a reasonable religious accommodation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, going against recent Supreme Court precedent.

“There were discriminatory violations that [the department] could have easily accommodated,” said Daniel Schmid, a Liberty Counsel attorney who represents Batman. “Even if you’re a government employee … you still maintain the First Amendment right to exercise your religion.”

Batman, a 24-year veteran at the Department of Public Works in Alhambra, Calif., worked his way up to the civil engineer role. He describes himself as a devout Christian who holds Biblical views on marriage, sexuality, and family. According to the lawsuit, he believes it is wrong to celebrate or recognize symbols of sin—and he notes the rainbow, incorporated in the Pride flag, is a sacred symbol that God used in the Bible to represent His promises.

In 2023, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors adopted a policy to fly the Pride flag every June at government buildings. At the time, Janice Hahn, the board’s chair, said the board adopted the policy to show the county’s “unwavering” governmental support for its LGBTQ residents.

Batman believes the county’s move directly conflicted with his faith, the lawsuit contends.

As Batman worked remotely in June 2023 due to construction on his office building, he didn’t run into trouble with the regulation that year. But in May 2024, while back in the office, he asked to work remotely for the duration of Pride month as part of a religious accommodation under Title VII.

Title VII requires employers to accommodate an employee’s sincerely held religious beliefs unless doing so overly burdens the company. Batman typically works four days a week, with one of those days being remote. He asked the county if he could work remotely for an additional 12 days during June.

Officials denied his request, saying it didn’t uphold their commitment to “fostering an inclusive and welcoming environment for all.” They directed Batman to use the back entrance of the building if he wanted to avoid seeing the flag, adding that he could seek mental health counseling if the flag caused him “distress,” according to the lawsuit.

Batman filed a grievance with the Department of Employee Relations to challenge the denial. He argued that the flag subjects him to its “message and ideology immediately when I first enter the building, each time I exit and then re-enter the building at lunch, and finally when I exit the building to go home each evening,” according to the grievance. Batman added that the flag made the workplace environment hostile to his beliefs.

The department denied his request a day later.

Batman requested the same remote work accommodation in 2025. This time, he pointed out that his employer gave similar remote work accommodations to religious employees for a month due to Ramadan. But again, his request was unsuccessful.

The department could have easily accommodated Batman, said Schmid. His request would not have barred the city from celebrating Pride Month or affected Batman’s ability to do his job, he said.

WORLD reached out to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works for comment but did not hear back prior to publication.

Under the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Groff v. DeJoy, employers must show that a religious accommodation causes substantial hardship before denying it, Schmid said. In Groff, the high court upped the burden on employers by requiring them to show that the accommodation would substantially increase the cost of doing business. But Batman argues it’s clear he could have easily worked remotely for a full month—as he had already done in 2023.

Instead, the department denied his request because it wanted to foster a so-called inclusive environment. “Inclusive and welcoming to everybody but him, I suppose,” Schmid said.

Batman isn’t the first to challenge the county’s 2023 Pride flag policy. Jeffrey Little, a lifeguard captain with the Los Angeles County Fire Department, sued the department in May 2024 for requiring him to raise the rainbow flag every June. He alleges he could lose the job he’s had for more than two decades if he declines to raise the flag.

Little and the county have moved for summary judgment in the case, meaning they are asking for a ruling without a full trial, said Michael McHale, an attorney at Thomas More Society, which represents Little. If the court denies their request, the case would then proceed to trial.

McHale added that, under Groff, an employer can’t just refuse an employee’s accommodation request; it has to at least consider other reasonable options. Employers need to communicate to find an acceptable solution for both sides, McHale told me in an email. Based on evidence that came out in the discovery phase of Little’s case, McHale said, the county has admitted that other options wouldn’t cause it “undue hardship.”

A ruling in both Little’s and Batman’s cases could set a precedent for Pride flag debates across the country, McHale added. They could determine when employers’ “interest in fostering ‘diversity and inclusion’ justifies … penalizing and excluding religious employees who do not toe the employer’s ideological line,” he said.