Liberty Counsel sent a demand letter to the Clackamas County Health, Housing, and Human Services Department on behalf of a licensed social worker facing unlawful retaliation for not following the county’s pronoun policy due to his religious beliefs. Clackamas County, Oregon requires all clinical staff to “use” a child’s “preferred pronouns.” However, the social worker objects to the policy as it forces expression against his religious beliefs as well as the desires of some parents he serves. The social worker has been threatened with demotion and has been discriminatorily denied a religious accommodation in violation of the First Amendment and Title VII.
Liberty Counsel requests that Clackamas County immediately provide the social worker a religious exemption to the pronoun policy and provide assurances that it will not retaliate against him or demote him for upholding his religious beliefs by declining to affirm perceived gender identities. Liberty Counsel requested Clackamas County respond by September 26, 2025.
In June 2025, the social worker met with his supervisors requesting an exemption to the pronoun policy that required him to use subjective “preferred” pronouns rather than objective pronouns based on sex regardless of parental desires or religious beliefs. As the letter states, he expressed that the pronoun policy “infringed on the fundamental rights of parents to raise their children and discriminated against him for holding sincerely held Christian beliefs.” However, his supervisors expressed a lack of concern and have not responded to his subsequent emails about the issue. Instead, his supervisor threatened him with demotion if he did not abide by the pronoun policy and threatened a “progressive discipline process” if the situation continued.
As Liberty Counsel notes, the First Amendment not only guarantees “the right to speak freely,” it also protects the right to “refrain from speaking at all,” such as declining to foster ideological concepts. By compelling the social worker to use preferred names and pronouns, Clackamas County is attempting to force him to express agreement with something with which he disagrees religiously and politically, which is something the First Amendment cannot tolerate, wrote Liberty Counsel.
The social worker is simply requesting a religious accommodation to avoid violating his religious beliefs over subjective pronouns. Yet, Clackamas County’s refusal coupled with retaliatory threats of demotion are adverse actions based on religion that violate Title VII. In addition, the social worker has never shown bias or disinterest in serving gender-confused individuals, thus Clackamas County cannot show how a religious accommodation would cause an “undue hardship” where they can lawfully deny his request.
Under the First Amendment and Title VII, the social worker’s decision to avoid using subjective pronouns is “indisputably protected,” concluded Liberty Counsel.
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “The First Amendment guarantees the right to speak and the right to not speak. Clackamas County cannot force a social worker to endorse or engage in ideological viewpoints that violate his religious beliefs or freedom of speech. Clackamas County should immediately grant this social worker a religious accommodation and withdraw its unlawful retaliatory threats.”
