In recent weeks, the staff at the Ocean Shores Animal Hospital has been accused of allegedly turning people away and denying services for pets belonging to those they believe are members of or align with the Republican party, including Mayor Frank Elduen’s wife Kerin and their dog.

Kerin, a member of North Beach Republican Women, a local chapter of the National Federation of Republican Women, posted about her experience on Facebook, which led to insults and profanity-laden tirades.

Recently, Kerin tried to make an appointment at three different veterinary clinics for their dog Wilson that had a swollen, open wound before calling the Ocean Shores Animal Hospital.

“I knew it wasn’t life-threatening, but I wanted to have him seen. First I called my vet, I called Raintree, they gave me an appointment for May 16. Before, they had squeezed me in. I looked online, called the other vets, I called Grays Harbor, I called Brady, then I called Ocean Shores,” Kerin said. “She looked up my name and asked me about my previous dogs. She put me on hold, I think she said her name was ‘Margie,’ she gets on the phone and says they’re unable to make the appointment because their internet is down. They’d get back to me when the internet was up. I waited and I waited. (Three hours later) it was Debbie that called and she said they were unable to make an appointment for me due to a ‘conflict of interest. That’s just what I was told.’”

The Ocean Shores Animal Hospital’s response to the assertion that the Elduen’s dog was turned away due to a “conflict interest” was “no comment.”

Frank Elduen said he is upset about the partisan politics that have been visible in Ocean Shores of late.

“I don’t like the politics that are going on. I’d like to see our community heal up, get together, it doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or Republican to me,” Frank said. “There’s so many things that are not necessary to bring politics into. I want all this politics to go away and we start loving each other like neighbors should. Your dog isn’t political. If you’re in the healthcare business, you take care of somebody or their dog without worrying about politics.”

Eventually, Kerin was forced to take the Gordon Setter to a vet in the Olympia area. She then took to Facebook to voice her frustrations and posit a theory as to why her dog was denied care.

The post reads, in part, “I was puzzled by the vet’s response and worried about my dog. We started rattling our brains to figure out what the huge conflict could be to cause a clinic to deny animal care. Can you guess what the conflict of interest is? A person involved with the vet’s office is also a member of the Indivisible group that has been harassing my husband, the mayor.”

Kerin’s post, which was published to and subsequently deleted from multiple Facebook pages of local interest, resulted in vitriol and prompted an individual to send a profanity laden personal attack to Kerin via Facebook Messenger. The same exact messages were then sent from an account with a different username after that individual was blocked.

Stories of other pet owners turned away due to partisan politics have cropped up. The Ocean Shores Animal Hospital said those accounts are untrue and declined to comment further.

Partisan politics

Most local elections are nonpartisan and do not require candidates to declare a party affiliation. According to a 2022 Governing article, this practice is at least 100 years old.

Alan Greenblatt wrote, “The idea of making local elections nonpartisan was part of the wave of Progressive Era reforms a century ago. The goal was to combat machine politics. In those days, a mayor or other machine operator could dole out patronage jobs and contracts in exchange for votes to keep himself and his party in power.”

Greenblatt’s article went on to say, “Local government officials spend much more time worrying about service delivery than partisanship, says James Brooks, of the National League of Cities. ‘The notion of a political agenda driven by one party or the other doesn’t seem to translate at the local level,’ Brooks says. ‘Ideology doesn’t seem to break down that way when you’re talking about trash pickup or bus shelters.’”

The federal Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin. Very few places have added “political ideology” as a protected class.

A July 2003 paper by Elliott Bronstein and Jacque Larrainzar of the Seattle Office for Civil Rights titled A Look at Seattle’s “Other” Protected Classes — Protection based on political ideology, sexual orientation and gender identity found in few jurisdictions, while referencing coverage of an anti-war protest, states, “The news articles highlighted Seattle’s listing of ‘political ideology’ as a protected class not just in public accommodations, but also in housing, employment and contracting. The City of Seattle and King County both list several protected classes beyond those covered under state and federal law. …

“Property managers and other business owners have the right to establish their own reasonable policies, as long as they do not have the effect of discriminating against people based on protected classes.”

According to the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council, “we reserve the right to refuse service” sign or policy is not a catch-all protective blanket for businesses.

A 2018 Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council article on the topic says, “You can’t set discriminatory rules. … You can bar patrons in some situations. … Setting and enforcing some rules may be legal but can discourage people from patronizing your business. Even worse, some rules may trigger negative remarks on social media that can have a very deleterious effect. So the rules you set should be filtered through a marketing eye.”

According to RCW 48.43.065, “No individual health care provider, religiously sponsored health carrier, or health care facility may be required by law or contract in any circumstances to participate in the provision of or payment for a specific service if they object to so doing for reason of conscience or religion.”

The Hastings Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit, defines conscientious objection in health care as “the refusal of a health care professional to provide or participate in the delivery of a legal, medically appropriate health care service to a patient because of personal beliefs. … The right of refusal by a doctor or other health care provider, based on a conflict between a personal moral commitment and a professional duty, is well protected in federal and state law, professional codes of ethics, and institutional policy. …Conscience rights are also limited by the foundational duty of care, which must be maintained through referrals and transfers so that a refusal to provide a service does not result in abandonment of a patient.”

Which begs the question, does veterinary staff qualify as a “health care provider?”

According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, “Veterinarians are doctors trained to protect the health of both animals and people. In a clinical hospital environment, veterinarians work with large and small animals to evaluate animals’ health; diagnose and treat illnesses; provide routine preventive care; prescribe medication; and perform surgery. Some veterinarians specialize in areas such as surgery, internal medicine, ophthalmology or dentistry.”

While the World Health Organization asserts, “Veterinary public health is a component of public health that focuses on the application of veterinary science as a contribution to the protection and improvement of human well-being.”

Veterinary services, or the lack thereof, have been a hot button topic since the global COVID-19 pandemic caused numerous stressors for animal hospitals and clinics, animal shelters and kennels, and pet owners.

According to a Rectangle Health blog, “The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that over 40,000 new veterinarian jobs will open by 2030, and over 150,000 vet tech positions will open up before the decade’s end. These staggering numbers correspond to shortages across thousands of veterinary clinics.”

Like human healthcare, animal healthcare options in the region are limited with lengthy wait times for appointments. Ocean Shores Animal Hospital offers the only veterinarian in town, while there are two vets in Hoquiam and three in Aberdeen.

When it comes to interpreting discrimination law in refusal of services cases, even the United States Supreme Court has had a tough time deciding the issue.

In 2018, in a “narrow” decision, a Colorado baker won a case brought before the United States Supreme Court over his refusal to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, and then in 2023 lost his appeal of a ruling in a separate case that he violated a state anti-discrimination law by not making a cake to celebrate a gender transition.

Meanwhile, also in 2023, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Christian graphic artist/web designer who refused to work with same-sex couples despite a Colorado law that bars discrimination based on sexual orientation, race, gender and other characteristics.

The question remains. Does a healthcare provider’s refusal to provide services because of political ideology rise to the level of discrimination? Maybe not in a court of law, but in the court of public opinion in small town America …