In recent years, artificial intelligence tools have become increasingly common and effective in helping businesses meet their goals. While AI’s power can have some negative applications, many companies are committed to using it for good.
One of the most well-known AI companies, OpenAI (the company that created ChatGPT), says its “mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.” But in practice, OpenAI engaged in religious discrimination, harming people rather than helping them.
Dr. Christopher Yuan, the founder of a Christian nonprofit called Holy Sexuality, experienced this discrimination firsthand. But after Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a lawsuit, OpenAI reversed course.
Accepting God’s gift of salvation
Dr. Yuan was raised in a non-Christian home with what he describes as “traditional Chinese values.” With tongue in cheek, he says those values consisted of three things: “obey your parents, do well in school, and practice piano.”
But he also harbored a secret that he kept hidden from his family throughout high school, college, and even his time in the Marine Corps Reserves. In his early twenties, he came out as a gay man and began living in the gay community, eventually breaking the news to his parents. Through that experience, his mother and father came to faith in Jesus Christ, and they began praying for their son to be saved too.
Dr. Yuan set out to be a dentist, but during his time in dental school, he became addicted to drugs and then began dealing drugs to support his addiction. He was eventually expelled from school, and two years later, twelve law enforcement agents raided his house. He was sent to federal prison for 6 years.
It was during this time behind bars that God changed Dr. Yuan’s life. He began reading the Bible, accepted Jesus Christ into his heart, and applied to and began attending a Bible college. After he was released, he went on to teach at the college for twelve years and became a pastor, author, and accomplished speaker.
What is Holy Sexuality?
As someone who previously wrestled with elevating his false identity as a gay man above his true identity as a child of God, Dr. Yuan knows what it’s like to struggle with questions about sexual orientation. And in recent years, he has seen many young people facing the same struggles he once did.
Dr. Yuan began to feel God calling him to help families facing this issue, and in March 2023, he founded a nonprofit called Holy Sexuality. As part of the ministry, he created a 12-lesson video curriculum called The Holy Sexuality Project that helps people learn more about God’s design for marriage as a lifelong union between one man and one woman.
The lessons also teach that God creates each person as male or female. They explain that these two distinct, complementary sexes reflect God’s image and cannot be changed.
As Holy Sexuality began to grow, so did its needs. So, in December 2024, Dr. Yuan applied for the 50 percent nonprofit discount offered by a work-management software company called Asana.
Asana initially denied Holy Sexuality the nonprofit discount under its policy that excluded religious organizations from receiving the discounts. But after ADF filed a lawsuit challenging this religious discrimination, Asana agreed to offer Holy Sexuality the same discount it offers other nonprofits.
Unfortunately, another major software company didn’t get the message until it faced a lawsuit too.
OpenAI discriminates against Holy Sexuality
OpenAI is an artificial intelligence company that created and maintains the ChatGPT AI tool. The tool interacts with users in a conversational way to answer their questions. ChatGPT can generate meeting summaries from notes, write computer code, search the internet for answers to complex questions, draft emails, create images, and more.
OpenAI offers a more powerful version of the tool called ChatGPT Team for $25 per user per month. It also offers a 20 percent discount for nonprofit organizations, and it works with a company called Goodstack to determine whether nonprofits that apply for the discount are eligible.
However, until recently, OpenAI excluded “academic, medical, religious, or governmental institutions” from the discount.
Dr. Yuan wanted to use ChatGPT Team to help translate Holy Sexuality’s religious programming into other languages, among other things, so he applied for the nonprofit discount in February 2025. But the next month, he received an email informing him that the request had been denied.
Since Holy Sexuality is clearly not an academic, medical, or government institution, it is obvious that ChatGPT and Goodstack denied giving it the discount because of its religious nature. The companies’ actions = violated California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, which guarantees Californians “the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services in all business establishments of every kind whatsoever.” So, Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a lawsuit challenging OpenAI and Goodstack’s religious discrimination.
Thankfully, less than two months later, OpenAI agreed in a settlement to remove religious discrimination language from its policy and website. It also agreed to give Holy Sexuality the same 20 percent discount for a ChatGPT Team subscription that it offers other nonprofits.
Religious people are not second-class citizens in California, and religious nonprofits should be treated the same as other nonprofits. This settlement helps ensure that Holy Sexuality and similar organizations won’t face unlawful discrimination from OpenAI.
Holy Sexuality v. OpenAI
- March 2025: OpenAI and Goodstack denied Holy Sexuality’s application for a nonprofit discount.
- May 2025: ADF attorneys filed a lawsuit challenging OpenAI and Goodstack’s religious discrimination.
- July 2025: ADF attorneys reached a favorable settlement with OpenAI in which the company agreed to remove discriminatory language from its policy and website and to grant Holy Sexuality the same discount it offers other nonprofits.
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