This week, City Attorney Mike Aguirre is personally defending the city against charges that spectators at last year’s Pride parade sexually harassed four firefighters. The firefighters argue that they each suffered at least $700,000 in damages while participating in the three-hour community parade.

To his credit, Aguirre does not want this case to be disposed of by the “radical, liberal activists’ pro-gay judges” appointed by conservative Republicans. Rather, from the start, Aguirre has wanted to expose this case for what it is: an effort by the far right to mock our nation’s commitment to pluralism and equality for all.

Because the fact is, as I’ve said before, this suit is a perversion of our sexual harassment laws, which define sexual harassment as pervasive (daily), severe and perpetrated by an employee(s) under an employer’s control.

Consequently, the suit is yet another attempt by the firefighers’ attorney, Charles LiMandri, to advance the anti-gay agenda, the ultimate goal of which is to overrule Lawrence v. Texas so that states may (again) criminalize same-sex behavior and we can all go to jail.

LiMandri has contributed at least $10,000 to the anti-gay Proposition 8 campaign. He also supported physicians who argued for the right to deny life-saving medical treatment to patients if their sexual orientation conflicts with their religious beliefs.

Last month, the California Supreme Court, on a 7-0 vote, rejected such a notion in the case involving a lesbian’s right to seek fertility services. Not one of the six conservative Republicans on our California Supreme Court voted with LiMandri. And it’s doubtful that even one of seven Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court will want to review the case.

The reason is simple. The position LiMandri advocates is the same one the Ku Klux Klan unsuccessfully advocated before the U.S. Supreme Court decades ago, when, through Bob Jones University, it argued that religious freedom trumps civil rights laws.

Now that issue is arising again in the firefighters’ suit, as LiMandri argues that public employees’ religious beliefs prevail over job responsibilities.

In other words, he argues a city should not require a firefighter to ride in a truck during the Martin Luther King parade celebrating racial equality. Nor should the city of San Diego require its employees to participate in the Pride parade, the purpose of which, as Aguirre has said, is to celebrate Hillcrest’s diversity, including the GLBT community.

LiMandri argues that employees’ sincerely held religious beliefs, no matter how racist, sexist, or extreme trump the city’s right to have its public employees present in a community parade.

If LiMandri’s views were ever to become U.S. law, we can be certain the remaining jobs in the U.S. will be outsourced to China, where employers make no religious accommodation.

So this is what’s really at stake in the firefighters’ suit. It’s not just about the anti-gay overtones, and the trivializing of sexual harassment laws, it’s also about the economy.