Posted on 08/11/2022 6:12:55 PM PDT by marshmallow
In Doe v. Catholic Relief Services, (D MD, Aug. 3, 2022), a Maryland federal district court granted summary judgment in favor of plaintiff who was denied spousal health insurance coverage for his same-sex husband. Rejecting a church-autonomy defense, the court said in part:
CRS insists that any judicial inquiry into this case inevitably requires an inquiry into matters of Catholic faith and doctrine. This is not so; this case concerns a social service organization's employment benefit decisions regarding a data analyst and does not involve CRS's spiritual or ministerial functions.
The court held that Catholic Relief Services violated Title VII, and that the exemption in Title VII for religious organizations only applies to discrimination by them on the basis of religion. It also held that RFRA does not provide a defense because it applies only to claims against the government. The court also found no First Amendment violation, saying in part:
Our Constitution's solicitousness of religious exercise is not carte blanche for any religious institution wishing to place itself beyond the reach of any neutral and generally applicable law. This court need not engage in a strict scrutiny analysis that would apply if a truly comparable secular institution were being treated favorably compared to CRS.
(Excerpt) Read more at religionclause.blogspot.com ...
In this case, it is the judge and not the law that is an ass.
But! A Muslim mosque or Hindu temple could not be even asked to serve pork. Slaughtered cows. Serve a gay wedding.
An organization that collects even a penny of taxpayer money — let alone more than half its revenue from that source — shouldn’t be considered a religious institution by any objective measure.
I don't like the fact that they are taking money to assist DHS settle illegal aliens either. But the bigger issue is whether a invented "right" to the equal treatment of homosexual behavior trumps a clearly enumerated right in the 1st Amendment.
When this works it's way up to the SCOTUS, we may get a 5-4 decision upholding the quashing of religious rights in favor of polesmoking.
That’s the point. If CRS is getting paid by the government, then I don’t see how it can possibly be pursuing a bona fide religious mission. The government doesn’t fund religious missions.
Catholic Charities lost a similar case in California a few years ago, and after reading the details of the court’s decision I had to agree with it. In addition to the government funding angle, the court raised a number of other points that completely undermined any claim that Catholic Charities met any objective definition of a “religious organization.” One important one was that the organization didn’t have any kind of religious requirement for its staff — including people in some C-suite leadership roles. The court basically said: “How can you call your work a ‘Catholic mission’ if your CFO is Jewish and you are willing to hire people of any religious denomination (or none at all) to carry it out?”
Only hire practicing Catholics, not winkers. Fire the deceitful winkers and the winkers/einker bishops that hired them.
If what you say is correct then it may be a charity, but it is only a “Catholic” charity in name only and I would agree with you.
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