Posted on 09/05/2007 7:01:34 AM PDT by presidio9
Congress may soon call on religious institutions ranging from summer camps to charities to declare up-front whether they are unwilling to hire gay employees.
A bill that, if passed, would become the first federal law to prohibit employment discrimination against gays contains a broad exemption for religious organizations. But to qualify for that exemption, religious groups would have to declare "which of its religious tenets are significant" and must be adhered to by employees. Lawyers say this requirement could put pressure on religious organizations to state a doctrinal prohibition against homosexuality in order to continue to legally exclude gay job applicants.
"This is something new," a law professor at George Washington University, Ira Lupu, said. The effect of such a law, Mr. Lupu said, would be that "there is no more First Amendment right to be exempt unless you want to tell us that making us hire these people is really in conflict with our religious commitments."
In many congregations, there are deep divisions about what their religion says regarding homosexuality. Across the nation there would likely be divisions within individual congregations about whether church funds should be used to hire homosexuals. In congregations such as these, the new bill would require a firming up or a rapid formulation of such policies.
"These organizations may be perfectly happy with a sort of don't ask and don't tell policy," the general counsel of the American Jewish Congress, Marc Stern, said, "but this may force groups to take one side or the other."
If passed, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act would carry a blanket exemption for the hiring practices of religious congregations,
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
And that's the narrow version, some of us would include all of the canons and doctrinal pronouncements of the Ecumenical Councils (a bit more stuff there for the Latins than for us Orthodox since they claim to have had a bunch on their own) and all local councils whose validity has been received throughout the Church (for us Orthodox, or by the Pope of Rome for the Latins).
Yep...if you read the verses of the lampstands of revelation, there’s no guarantee that passage of such a law isnt actually God’s will.
The camel’s nose in the tent.
They shouldn’t pass this bill even if it has an exemption for religious institutions. Why should a sex perversion be a “civil rights” category?
Even with a religious exemption, the bill is dangerous for churches. Many religious schools don’t require all students to belong to the faith of the sponsoring institution. The federal bureaucracy will see that as “proof” that church doctrine isn’t “relevant” to their school system and force them to hire some guy who likes to wear dresses and talks incessantly about his “boyfriend”.
The anarcho-tyranny continues to grow stronger. I’m hopeful that President Bush will veto this abomination if it passes, but we’re one Democrat president away from having this garbage imposed on us.
Where are all of the “There must be separation of church and state” ACLU-types now????? ~~~~crickets~~~~
Bible; Ecumenical Councils (21 of them); the whole Ordinary Magisterium including encyclicals and catechisms (properly interpreted) -— whew -— and everything learned at one’s mother’s knee, including the part about finishing what’s on one’s plate on account of the starving Armenians.
Ten years ago, a judge in Boca Raton, Florida ordered all Stars of David and Crosses removed from the municipal cemeteries because he ruled that those symbols were not tenets of the faiths.
What happened to all the screaming about “separation of Church and State?” THIS sort of meddling is what the Founding Fathers had in mind, not keeping God our of schools.
A Truro, MA Fireman was fired for signing the Marriage Amendment Petition at his church. So the real question is will the Fed, State and Municipal governments continue to hire Christians, Jews and Muslims?
Blatantly unconstitutional...
Exactly! Don't know who your Congresscritter is down there on the South Side, but mine's Manzullo. And he might be at an Illinois Republican meeting in Rockford on the 10th. I'll be there, and if he is, he'll hear about this.
Is Manzullo on our side, or is he a typical Illinois RINO?
He was completely against the Shamnesty bill. I have that in writing. I've not had any substantive with him in the years he's been in office. And I'm no RINO.
Mine is Jesse Jackson, Jr., but who knows, it might be worth the effort to contact him about this.
It’s interesting how the “establishment clause” is constantly being trotted out to keep religious organizations and even religious individuals from doing certain things, but on issues that it plainly addresses—like this one—it’s conveniently forgotten.
Gay ‘tenets’? Since when did ‘Gay’ become a ‘faith’?
Since when did it become illegal to discriminate against a behavior?
Since when did it become illegal to discriminate against a behavior?
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