Agreement reached after filing federal lawsuit
A California-based technology company has agreed to give theologian Christopher Yuan’s nonprofit a discount after initially refusing to do so because the organization is religious.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal nonprofit specializing in religious freedom cases, announced last week that a settlement had been reached between OpenAI and Yuan’s group, Holy Sexuality.
As part of the agreement, OpenAI will remove a previous policy that barred religious nonprofits from receiving a 20% discount on a ChatGPT subscription, which it had previously offered to secular nonprofits.
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“Christians and other people of faith aren’t second-class citizens in California, and tech companies can’t deny otherwise available discounts to customers simply because they’re religious,” said ADF Senior Counsel Phil Sechler, as quoted in the announcement.
“OpenAI did the right thing by reversing course, agreeing to give Holy Sexuality the ChatGPT discount it offers other nonprofits, and eliminating its discriminatory policy.”
This is not the first time that Holy Sexuality has filed legal action against a tech company headquartered in California over its refusal to provide a discount given to nonreligious entities.
In February, with the aid of the ADF, Holy Sexuality filed a complaint against Asana, Inc. of San Francisco over that company’s refusal to give them a 50% nonprofit discount for the company’s project management software because of the religious nature of Yuan’s ministry.
The lawsuit cited Asana’s website, which stated at the time that their discount was not allowed for “organizations that exist to solely propagate a belief in a specific faith or do not provide services to people outside of a specific faith.”
Asana had also barred hospitals, credit unions, educational institutions, and any groups “that advocate, support, or practice discrimination based on age, ethnicity, gender, national origin, disability, race, size, religion, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic background.”
In April, Asana agreed to settle with Holy Sexuality, allowing the Christian nonprofit to access the discount and enabling religious groups to take advantage of it.
“Our nation was founded on the principle of the free exercise of religion — a cornerstone of our democracy,” Yuan stated at the time. “Yet some corporations, emboldened by intersectional ideology and anti-Christian sentiment, choose to unlawfully discriminate based solely on religion.”
“We are grateful for this victory and hope it serves to remind other companies that California law protects all religions from discrimination. Equal treatment is the bedrock of our society. I rejoice with this outcome as it is a move in the right direction.”
