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Supreme Court asks: could discrimination claim force female priests?
cna ^ | October 7, 2011 | Benjamin Mann

Posted on 10/07/2011 1:37:57 PM PDT by NYer

Washington D.C., Oct 7, 2011 / 04:53 am (CNA/EWTN News).-

A Lutheran teacher's lawsuit led to a provocative question being asked in the Supreme Court on Oct. 5: could government efforts to end job discrimination jeopardize the all-male Catholic priesthood?

The case pitting the commission against Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School does not directly concern the issue of women and the priesthood. But justices were quick to connect the matter at hand – involving the Lutheran group's right to hire and fire ministers at their discretion – with the issue of Catholics' and other groups' right to determine who will exercise ministries.

Wednesday's case first arose when Cheryl Perich, who taught religious and secular subjects, was fired from a position the Lutherans considered a religious ministry.

Perich, who had narcolepsy, claimed she was illegally fired as a form of retaliation for threatening to pursue a legal complaint against the school under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says a traditional “ministerial exception,” allowing churches freedom in hiring and firing, does not apply to this case.

Hosanna-Tabor, however, says it fired Perich from her teaching ministry not in retaliation, but on religious grounds. They say the fourth-grade teacher lost her job for refusing to submit to an in-house dispute resolution process , thereby violating the church's interpretation of a biblical passage that discourages Christians from suing one another.

“The (Obama) administration has taken a very extreme position,” said Becket Fund Legal Counsel Luke Goodrich, who is leading the religious freedom group's work on the Hosanna-Tabor case. He said the administration was “attacking the very existence of the ministerial exception,” such that “even the pastor of a church could sue the church for employment discrimination.”

“There's a lot of uncertainty surrounding the outcome of this case,” Goodrich told CNA/EWTN News Oct. 3, “because the Supreme Court has not decided a case involving the autonomy of religious groups in many years.”

The Justice Department holds that the Lutherans cannot fire Perich for complaining to the government even if church teaching forbids it.

And it was this question – when might the government's interest in preventing discrimination trump a religious group's principles? – that prompted the justices to ask the attorney for the government’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission during Oct. 5 oral arguments why female priests could not be mandated by the government on similar grounds. 

“The belief of the Catholic Church that priests should be male only – you do defer to that, even if the Lutherans say, look, our dispute resolution belief is just as important to a Lutheran as the all-male clergy is to a Catholic?” asked Chief Justice John Roberts, questioning Leodra Kruger, the U.S. solicitor general's assistant who represented the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission.

“Yes,” Kruger responded. “But that's because the balance of relative public and private interests is different in each case.”

“Do you believe, Miss Kruger, that a church has a right that's grounded in the Free Exercise Clause and/or the Establishment Clause to institutional autonomy with respect to its employees?” asked Justice Elena Kagan.

“We don't see that line of church autonomy principles in the religion clause jurisprudence as such,” the federal government's attorney replied.

Kruger also said the ministerial exception to discrimination laws was not simply a part of the First Amendment's guarantee of the “free exercise of religion.”

Justice Scalia then pressed Kruger on the difference between ordinary “associations” – subject to a range of anti-discrimination laws – and religious ones.

“There is nothing in the Constitution that explicitly prohibits the government from mucking around in a labor organization,” said Justice Scalia, “but there, black on white in the text of the Constitution are special protections for religion. And you say that makes no difference?”

Kruger's response included her explanation of what the government considers “the core of the ministerial exception as it was originally conceived … which is that there are certain relationships within a religious community that are so fundamental, so private and ecclesiastical in nature, that it will take an extraordinarily compelling governmental interest to (allow) just interference.”

But Justice Breyer pushed the federal government's attorney to say how far she believed the protection extended.

“Suppose you have a religion and the central tenet is: 'You have a problem with what we do, go to the synod; don't go to court,'” he asked. “So would that not be protected by the First Amendment?”

“It's not protected,” Kruger responded.

The government attorney went on to attack Hosanna-Tabor's use of the ministerial exception, which she said would mean “ that the hiring and firing decisions with respect to parochial school teachers and with respect to priests is categorically off limits” to federal regulators.

“We think that that is a rule that is insufficiently attentive to the relative public and private interests at stake,” she said, citing “interests that this Court has repeatedly recognized are important in determining freedom of association claims.”

It was then that Breyer sprung the question of whether a woman might sue over her exclusion from the Catholic priesthood, on the same basis that Perich was suing over a religiously-grounded termination.

Kruger said the two situations were different – not categorically, but rather because “the private and public interests are very different in the two scenarios.”

“The government's general interest in eradicating discrimination in the workplace is simply not sufficient to justify changing the way that the Catholic Church chooses its priests, based on gender roles that are rooted in religious doctrine,” she said.

But, she said, the government does have a “compelling and indeed overriding interest in ensuring that individuals are not prevented from coming to the government with information about illegal conduct,” even if the church in question would prohibit its members from doing so on religious grounds.

Justice Samuel Alito pointed out that this distinction between the Lutherans' lawsuit prohibition on the one hand, and the Catholic Church's male priesthood on the other, seemed arbitrary.

Kruger's clearest articulation of the Obama administration's position on religious freedom came in response to Justice Kagan's question as to whether she was “willing to accept the ministerial exception for substantive discrimination claims, just not for retaliation claims.”

The government's lawyer responded that “substantive discrimination” claims, such as those alleging sex discrimination, could also be legitimate grounds for a lawsuit against some religious institutions.

She said the government's interest in regulating Hosanna-Tabor's hiring and firing “extends … beyond the fact that this is a retaliation, to the fact that this is not a church operating internally to promulgate and express religious belief.”

“It is a church that has decided to open its doors to the public to provide the socially beneficial service of educating children for a fee, in compliance with state compulsory education laws,” she said, drawing a sharp distinction between churches and religious ministries.

“Church-operated schools,” Kruger stated, “sit in a different position with respect to the permissible scope of governmental regulations, than churches themselves do.”

The court is expected to hand down its ruling by summer of 2012.


TOPICS: Catholic; Ministry/Outreach; Religion & Politics; Worship
KEYWORDS: catholic; feminaziagenda; lutheran; priesthood; scotus
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1 posted on 10/07/2011 1:38:04 PM PDT by NYer
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To: netmilsmom; thefrankbaum; Tax-chick; GregB; saradippity; Berlin_Freeper; Litany; SumProVita; ...

Catholic ping!


2 posted on 10/07/2011 1:38:46 PM PDT by NYer ("Be kind to every person you meet. For every person is fighting a great battle." St. Ephraim)
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To: NYer

(The Justice Department holds that the Lutherans cannot fire Perich for complaining to the government even if church teaching forbids it.)

So separation of Church and State only applies when it works for the State??
The current Government is not a friend of the people, the Constitution, the military....


3 posted on 10/07/2011 1:43:54 PM PDT by SECURE AMERICA (Where can I sign up for the New American Revolution and the Crusades 2012?)
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To: NYer
Sepaeration of Church and State? Lately the libs have been using that exclusively in their own favor (freedom from religion, the liberal jerkwads all shriek)-- now its our turn.

Hands off the priesthood.

4 posted on 10/07/2011 1:44:29 PM PDT by NakedRampage (Fortis cadere, cedere non potest (A brave man may fall, but he cannot yield))
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To: NYer
Didn't the SC rule a few years that a private organization has the right to associate with whomever they please?
IIRC, it was the NAGs trying to gain membership to the Augusta National CC.
5 posted on 10/07/2011 1:49:03 PM PDT by oh8eleven (RVN '67-'68)
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To: NakedRampage

I am convinced history is a big circle, and Christianity in the West will simply go right back to where it was in the second and third centuries in Rome.

There is nothing new under the Sun, after all.


6 posted on 10/07/2011 1:54:43 PM PDT by PGR88 (I'm so open-minded my brains fell out)
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To: SECURE AMERICA

Exactly. The liberals’ favorite “wall of separation” document, Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists explained that this kind of interference by the government was not allowed under the Bill of Rights. Contrary to popular belief, the courts are part of the government.


7 posted on 10/07/2011 1:55:19 PM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (If you always tell the truth, you won't have to remember what you said.)
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To: NYer; Chode

oh brother!


8 posted on 10/07/2011 1:55:30 PM PDT by Morgana ("Since using your shampoo my hair has come alive!" ----Medusa)
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To: NYer

Perhaps the court could determine rocks should be bread and solve world hunger?


9 posted on 10/07/2011 1:58:45 PM PDT by G Larry (I dream of a day when a man is judged by the content of his character)
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To: NYer

This is exactly what happens when government (including the courts) gets involved in strictly private matters. This is where the 1964 Civil Rights Act, for instance, went too far: government forcing integration is just as bad as segregation. Who I decide to pay or not pay is nobody else’s business.


10 posted on 10/07/2011 2:03:13 PM PDT by Da Bilge Troll (Defeatism is not a winning strategy!)
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To: NYer

Not until they compell female imams.


11 posted on 10/07/2011 2:10:47 PM PDT by ViLaLuz (2 Chronicles 7:14)
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To: NYer
Is this potential enforcement pertain to only Catholics? Will it be inclusive and be applied in the same manner to all organizations? Such as: Buddhists, muslims, Amish. Certainly would like to hear input from all organizations that might be affected.
12 posted on 10/07/2011 2:10:53 PM PDT by RichyTea (To those offended - take off your blinders)
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To: NYer
They say the fourth-grade teacher lost her job for refusing to submit to an in-house dispute resolution process , thereby violating the church's interpretation of a biblical passage that discourages Christians from suing one another.

I think this has to be viewed from the perspective of setting a precedent for Sharia law in muslim organizations. If they are allowed to declare their in-house beliefs and rules as not subject to constitutional review, it could be a bad thing.

13 posted on 10/07/2011 2:11:05 PM PDT by oldbrowser (Democrats have no superego.)
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To: NYer
Supreme Court asks: could discrimination claim force female priests?

Not in The Church. In the counterfeits? Anything goes.

14 posted on 10/07/2011 2:14:59 PM PDT by the invisib1e hand (...then they came for the guitars, and we kicked their sorry faggot asses into the dust)
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To: All
“The government's general interest in eradicating discrimination in the workplace is simply not sufficient to justify changing the way that the Catholic Church chooses its priests, based on gender roles that are rooted in religious doctrine,” she said.

Wow. There you have it, in black and white. The Obama Administration thinks they have the legal right to outlaw the Catholic religion, all they lack is the "compelling governmental interest" (= grounds, motivation, justification) to do so.

For now.

15 posted on 10/07/2011 2:17:53 PM PDT by Campion ("Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies when they become fashions." -- GKC)
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To: SECURE AMERICA

This is why secular ideologies need to be treated the way religions have come to be treated under the law. Otherwise, religious freedom will become a relic.


16 posted on 10/07/2011 2:21:18 PM PDT by rzman21
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To: rzman21

Jesus said that Christians will be persecuted in every nation. It’s coming soon, and the average church will dwindle from 300 to 15, just like it did in Russia. Time to prepare.


17 posted on 10/07/2011 2:32:19 PM PDT by aimhigh
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To: FlingWingFlyer
Jefferson is pretty much all over the place on just about every issue there was. Of course, the biggie was having slaves and condemning slavery at the same time....and also saying blacks were inferior.

think of him as a muddled mesh of thoughts but nevertheless, a great patriot.

Psst...The Federal government designated lots as reserved for Religious purposes. That was our land!!

18 posted on 10/07/2011 2:41:42 PM PDT by Sacajaweau
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To: Morgana
feh...
19 posted on 10/07/2011 2:45:45 PM PDT by Chode (American Hedonist - *DTOM* -ww- NO Pity for the LAZY)
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To: NYer
I think, in looking at how this might result in discrimination suits filed by women who want to be Roman Catholic Priests, people aren't noticing that this has a MUCH wider scope. The key line from the article:

“It is a church that has decided to open its doors to the public to provide the socially beneficial service of educating children for a fee, in compliance with state compulsory education laws,” she said, drawing a sharp distinction between churches and religious ministries.

Ok, so the standard being put here is that when a church opens its doors to the public to provide a socially beneficial service it forfeits the religious exemption.

Apply that standard in other areas. Such as to hospitals and the "right" to an abortion. Under that standard religious hospitals might be forced to, down the road, perform abortions, right?
20 posted on 10/07/2011 3:20:02 PM PDT by tanknetter
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