A Daily News Update from the editors of Charisma magazine
Thursday, August 26, 1999 Vol. 1 No. 127
POLICEWOMAN FIRED FOR
REFUSING TO WEAR PANTS
An 18-year police officer has been fired because she refused to wear trousers on the job, arguing that to do so would violate her Christian beliefs that she should not dress like a man.
Lark Huber, a member of the Church of God in Jesus Christ, was dismissed by the Mobile County Sheriff’s Department last month for insisting on wearing a skirt when she reported for a new patrol assignment, reported “The Mobile (Ala.) Register.” Supervisors said the skirt posed a safety hazard, although she had previously been allowed to wear one as a plainclothes detective.
Lawyer Lynn Miller, who is handling the officer’s appeal against dismissal, said Huber had been offered a transfer to a job where she could wear a skirt, but it would have brought “a great reduction in pay.” Eric Johnston of The Rutherford Institute, which is assisting in the action, said Huber was a victim of religious persecution.
Despite her firing, Huber–whose dress code convictions are based on Deuteronomical writings–is helping close cases began while she was still working as a detective, said the “Register.” “I have to do it for the victims,” she said.
In New York, two female correction officers suspended for refusing to wear pants are part of a separate action against the city’s Department of Correction for its skirt ban, which went into effect in May, Reuters reported. Norman Seabrook, president of the New York City Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, which is seeking to have the ruling overturned, said it was “outrageous” that officers be forced “to choose between keeping their jobs and adhering to their religious beliefs.”