It’s the August recess in Washington and Members of Congress left town faster than a Texas Democrat. So Congress is not threatening to pass any bad legislation at the moment, which is nice. And it’s a good time to meet with Congressional staff who are a little more relaxed and available without their bosses around. However, it doesn’t mean nothing is happening anywhere.
Last week a federal court issued a ruling expanding the scope of the ministerial exemption. What is that, you may be asking? It is a legal principle, not a law, resulting from a 2012 Supreme Court decision that shields religious organizations from lawsuits over their hiring and firing of faith leaders and certain key employees. Basically it gives religious groups freedom to select who will be their leaders/ministers and therefore allows the groups to discriminate in hiring. A Catholic Church can discriminate against a woman who wants to be hired to be a priest because Catholic priests must be men, for example.
This latest case extended the ministerial exemption to the people who answer the phones at World Vision, a large faith-based international development and humanitarian aid organization. World Vision fired one of their customer service people when it came to light that she was in a same-sex marriage, because World Vision does not approve. The Court ruled that because the customer service reps advanced World Vision’s faith-based message and occasionally prayed with callers, they should be covered by the ministerial exemption and the firing was upheld.
Judicial activism is when a court comes up with a policy that’s not in any law anywhere, and it’s a policy you don’t agree with. This latest World Vision decision is a good example. I’m talking to some Congressional staff about whether it’s time for legislation on the ministerial exemption. The courts would have to defer to Congress if such a bill becomes law.
Last time I covered the new guidance from the Office of Personnel Management on discussing and displaying religion in the federal workplace. Here is a letter the Secular Coalition sent to the OPM director. We didn’t get an answer yet but we did get some coverage of the letter here and on social media.
It’s possible to learn something every day around here, so today I offer up the Treaty of Tripoli from 1797, designed to protect American ships in the Mediterranean from pirates. The next time you hear someone say America was founded as a Christian nation you can throw the Treaty of Tripoli at them because, as I just learned, Article 11 says,”[t]he Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”
The treaty was printed up for every Senator, passed unanimously by the Senate and signed by President John Adams. I’m less interested in what the Founders were thinking 228 years ago in a different world than what is best for the country right now, but it’s good to be able to shut down the “founded as a Christian nation” argument.
