Holder’s Quiet Court Attack on Religious Freedom
Eric Holder’s Department of Justice has quietly advanced legal arguments in direct conflict with Catholic teaching and the teaching of other Christian denominations. If the Department of Justice prevails, the Catholic Church and other churches will have a difficult time preserving doctrinal traditions central to church teaching, particularly in church schools. The quiet and radical legal attack comes with perilous political risk, because active Catholics may determine Obama’s fate in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Mexico, Iowa, and Wisconsin.
Like so much from this Justice Department, Holder’s radical legal positions are at odds with long American traditions. This latest species of Holder’s radicalism is a frontal attack on faith communities.
In the case of Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Holder’s DOJ argued that a church cannot fire an employee for acting contrary to church teaching, and contrary to an employment contract that incorporates that teaching. A teacher filed a complaint to the government about how the school handled her narcolepsy, which presumably would involve sleeping at work. The church school then fired the teacher because the church forbids lawsuits among believers based on 1 Corinthians 6:1-8. (“But instead, one brother takes another to court—and this in front of unbelievers!”)
This particular Lutheran church had well established dispute resolution mechanisms within the church, and based on church teaching. Instead, the teacher went to the government, contrary to church teaching.
Holder’s Justice Department believes that religious schools should not be able to enjoy a longstanding exemption to various employment laws which conflict with church teaching, or, the “ministerial exception.”
Assistant to the Solicitor General Leondra R. Kruger (photo below) argued that the religious school could not fire the teacher for filing a complaint to the government even if church teaching forbids it. (Some background on Kruger here, here, and here). At oral argument, Kruger advocated positions so extreme that even Justice Elena Kagan appeared to reject them.
It’s not hard to see where this slippery slope slides. What if a teacher in a Catholic school does something directly contrary to Catholic teaching? Or, consider this possibility offered by American Catholic:
Then, too, what also about Catholic women using this principle to sue the Catholic Church in the United States because they are excluded from the priesthood? There’s absolutely no doubt that when it comes to ordination, the Catholic Church discriminates in favor of males. Should SCOTUS be able to tell the Catholic Church in the United States that it must redress the imbalance?
Yes…if, as an organization, the Catholic Church is bound by federal employment discrimination statutes.
No…if, as an organization, the U.S. Catholic Church is exempt from federal employment discrimination statutes.
Far fetched? Not to Kruger.
At oral argument, she wouldn’t categorically preclude the possibility. Instead, she told the Court that the government interest isn’t currently sufficient to justify an assault on the male priesthood. Kruger 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.” In other words, even if church doctrine prohibits you from settling disputes with the church through the government, the Obama administration cares not. Holder wants informants, or as the DOJ prefers to call them, complainants.
You can read the transcript of the argument with details of Kruger’s assault on religious independence.
Sometimes the radicalism of Obama’s Justice Department is on full display, like when it sues Arizona or blocks South Carolina voter ID. Other times, the radicalism creeps along the margins, as Kruger did at the Supreme Court, arguing that the long respected ministerial exception to church doctrine is no longer respected by this president and his Justice Department.
Expect a decision very soon in the case. Let’s hope if Kruger gets her way, the voters notice in November.
Thank you, Christian, for exposing this. It’s part of a larger program against religion that we’ve seen time and time again from Marxists over the past century and more. Nothing can be allowed to exist in the space that the state wants to occupy. In other words, the people must not have any alternative to the authority of the state. And in the Western world nothing represents an alternative to and refuge from a totalitarian state than organized religion.
Interesting you mention “in the Western world nothing represents an alternative to and refuge from a totalitarian state than organized religion.” Anyone who doubts this simply must read The End and the Beginning by George Weigel. http://www.amazon.com/End-Beginning-Victory-Freedom-Legacy/dp/038552479X
Weigel provides the details how the Polish Catholic Church was the ideological counterweight to Soviet style communist totalitarianism. It wasn’t mere political opposition, it all started with theocratic opposition – rejection of the dehumanizing and degrading philosophy of Marxist Leninism. John Paul, as a priest, then a cardinal, incubated a philosophy in the Polish Church that gave it the spine, the cultural backbone to eventually overthrow communist totalitarianism. The Polish Church offered an active moral alternative to the state. Unlike some christian theologies who prefer to “check out” of political fights, the “things of the world”, the Polish Church, under the boot of the regime, saw that checking out means human decay, social depravity. It means, frankly, fewer souls saved. So changing the culture, the government, to allow the spirit to flourish, did not permit disinterest in “things of the world.” John Paul understood this, and it unraveled an evil empire. I can’t recommend Weigel enough on this point.
If you want a shorter, more diluted version of events, read The President, the Pope and the Prime Minister by the same publisher as my book Injustice, Regnery. http://www.amazon.com/President-Pope-Prime-Minister-Changed/dp/1596980168/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326212937&sr=1-
Moira, you nailed it with this: “Nothing can be allowed to exist in the space that the state wants to occupy.”
That one statement captures the epic goals of this particular administration and the growing impact of its pursuits on every front: basic rights, national security, business and industry, energy and the environment, religion, etc., etc.
To take your comment to the next logical step: Nothing will be allowed to exist in the space that the state wants to occupy. And, so far, Obama & Minions have yet to encounter a space they don’t want.
Saying that Citizens of America, that is, Americans, all have the same constitutional rights is hardly an assault on religious freedom. All citizens have access to the same government and no one can tell them otherwise.
Sure, there are a lot of sectarians that would wish poor people never sued anyone or women never insisted upon equal rights, but no rich pastor, rabbi, or priest anywhere worries about someone telling them not to use the legal system.
1: If she agreed to it going in then she can’t really complain when it’s used on her.
2: Using terms like “wish poor people never sued anyone” and “women never insisted upon equal rights” shows that you have little understanding of how things work and indeed have agendas beyond genuine displeasure.
This has zero bearing on her gender. If a male did what she did the result would be similar if not identical.
This also has no bearing on her monetary status.
This comes down to two problems.
1: The current administration is trying to force itself into the church where it has almost no constitutional power.
2: The current administration is trying to restrict non-harmful religious policies according to its own agenda again with no constitutional backing.
See Acts 5.29. When a governmental command contradicts a Divine command, the Divine command must always prevail.In other words, God is more important than Oscumbag and Co.
So it does not matter what manmade law says. Gods word is always trump.
You are overlooking those of us for whom your god holds no sway. So when you speak from on high like that it just sounds like a lot of farts blowing out from some air expelling orifice of yours.
See Acts 5.29. When a governmental command contradicts a Divine command, the Divine command must always prevail.In other words, God is more important than Oscumbag and Co.
So it does not matter what manmade law says. Gods word is always trump.
How’s harriett? And the boys?
Except what they’re actually saying is “some people have more rights than others”.
The woman suing signed a contract that specified disagreements would be taken to arbitration. She violated the contract, but now the government is saying she should not be held to that contract, because…
Why? Because the other party to the contract is a religious institution? Why are their rights less than hers?
Doesn’t this contrast to the case in Tampa(I think) where a judge allowed a dispute between two Muslims to be decided by a Sharia law arbitrator? What has happened to us?
I think the voters are onto the attacks against our way of life here in the USA. The problem with DOJ, as i see it, is that Holder’s bloodline hasn’t been here long enough for Eric to have assimilated. I often wonder how he got through law school because his interpretations of written law is rather primal. Let’s just get through this year and maybe we will find that Eric Holder is held for treason and jailed.
Or maybe conspiracy to commit murder, in the case of Brian Terry. Or perhaps he can be extradited to Mexico and stand trial for the hundreds of Mexican nationals his insidious and deadly Fast and Furious fiasco caused. Perhaps 40+ years in a Mexican jail will whet his appetite to be in the company of a ‘nation of cowards’.
This is a complex question.
First, there is the right of freedom of religion. What, in actual daily life, does this mean? What if the activities within the religion contradict the laws of the state – as in so-called gender discrimination within the Catholic priesthood. And what about orthodox Judaism which requires the separation of men and women, as does Islam?
And how far does the exemption of the church/synagogue/mosque from state laws go? Do religious laws apply only within the direct governance of the church? What about the rules, in Islamic households, that polygamy is permissable? Or that in divorce, the woman is entitled to only half the worth of a man?
The separation of church and state was a great accomplishment, allowing for dissent and analysis of both sets of rules. But, how do they interact?
Check Reynolds V. US , 1878 , Supreme Court ruled against polygamy despite Reynolds claim of religious right as a Mormon to multiple marriage. Court ruled that actions can be proscribed but beliefs cannot. Otherwise each individual could become a law unto themselves.
That ruling may one day save the US from the imposition of Sharia Law.
Since you brought up this thorny issue I seek not to excuse or explain but to add some perspective. Before Reynolds V. US , 1878, it was not illegal to engage in polygamy. The LDS Church has since about 1842 (30 years previously) has followed it’s Articles of Faith.
Number 12:
We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.
Once the practice of polygamy was deemed to be illegal, the Church eliminated the practice in the US. Some families moved to other countries where it was, in fact, not illegal but most stayed here and obeyed the law.
My point, the over-riding principle here is that one is subject to the laws of the land. If one wants to change those laws one does it from within if possible. Only in the most egregious situations should one disobey the law and only if that law is immoral, illegal or improper.
It may come to pass that our leaders will become so corrupt, so lacking in integrity and so morally bankrupt that we (Americans) may have to revolt but that hopefully is very far in the future. Of course with Holder in the DOJ that time is coming irrevocably closer day by day.
The imposition of sharia law in this country will unleash a bloodbath of which Pol Pot would be envious.
The government must not interfere with the laws of religious institutions. In turn, religious institutions are forbidden from imposing criminal penalties (death, dismemberment, beatings, or incarceration). A religious institution is permitted to impose excommunication as a sanction, or to settle matters by consensual arbitration. They may also impose lesser sanctions such as penance, including making a public confession of wrongdoing and/or being segregated from the rest of the congregation.
The 1st Amendment reads as follows (with emphasis added):
Amendment 1 – Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression. Ratified 12/15/1791.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Those questions you asked all likely fall under the free exercise clause.
Thanks Larry I concur, hardly complex, this looks cut & dry to me. I guess I’m not Supreme Court material.
Reading and comprehending the US Constitution does not take a scholar.
Yes, *Congress* shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
That is what the states can do, per the 10th Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
No scholar needed: No federal laws about or prohibiting religion. But if California wants to establish the religion of Failed Leftist Plutocracies, then our Constitution cannot stop them.
Except that the 1st has been “incorporated” by the courts and is applied to the states as well as the feds.
Yes, but illegally so.
Try to think of it this way:
The gosple according to the secular does not like any competition. It attempts to remove anything contrary to it’s beliefs.
Like Islam, it will disguise itself as being something other than what it is.
John 15:20, 21 – “Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. “But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me.”
2 Timothy 3:12 – “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.”
This has all been written of before. Nothing changes.
I’m a Roman Catholic. If we have to go back drawing fish symbols to recognize each other we will. If there will be persecuation like in England during the reformation and in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, we’ll go underground. This does not matter. Bring it on, Holder.
Ad Jesum par Mariam
Keith
“…currently sufficient to justify an assault on the male priesthood.”
Since comparative precedent and case law are everything to such people, this woman is being disingenuous. It wouldn’t be a matter of “interest” but law since the male priesthood issue is clearly a more substantive and bald-faced issue.
She is simply attacking where her argument seems best and will attract the least push back. In reality, they are one and the same and one hopes the church will realize this and push back hard while they still have an entity to push back with.
Hey ACLU, this is what an Establishment Clause violation looks like! The government is forbidden from dictating religious doctrines. That only men are permitted to be ordained to the presbyterate and the episcopacy is a religious doctrine, and the First Amendment forbids the government from attempting to tamper with it. Any women seeking to cause trouble by suing to demand ordination should be excommunicated for intentionally sewing discord. Likewise, anyone who is banned from ordination for a different reason should be excommunicated if they take to lawsuits to argue their cases. It is one thing for a man to believe married men should be admitted to the presbyterate (that is, the priesthood) and request that the bishop and pope allow it; it is quite another for him, of his own accord, to sue the Church and demand ordination.
It is dogma that ordination cannot be demanded, and that no one is deserving of the honors and responsibilities of the presbyterate. The offering of a consideration of any sort in exchange for ordination is simony, and it deserves excommunication. Threatening the Church in order to extort an ordination is worse than attempting to buy one!
I agree that it’s not a simple question. If you want to make a case that Holder and his department are out of control (and I agree that they are), this is not a good example of it. The secular court will not likely come down with a ruling that supports prohibition of appeal to a secular court. The final court of appeal, in a country which is not a theocracy, must always be to a secular court. It cannot support a contract which prohibits and punishes appeal to a secular court. The church cannot use “freedom of religion” to set itself above the law. I say this as a Christian.
If you want to defeat Holder, don’t set up straw man arguments. It’s not a strength to make a lot of noise supported by a weak argument; it’s a weakness. Stick to the real wrongs committed by Holder and his department.
I completely disagree with this. There is a long established “ministerial exception” that has it’s foundation in the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Holder is attempting to undermine it. This isn’t a straw man. Nobody seeks to be above the law. The Law says that there is a ministerial exception. That IS the law, based on the First Amendment. This is far worse than many of the things I wrote about in my book.
By upholding the firing, the secular court would be ruling that what is subject to ministerial exception is beyond the secular courts, but this would be absurd. You do not think it can be left to the ecclesiastical courts do you? Ministerial exception is not church law, it is the law of the land, established by the people separated from the churchs. It may well be that the secular court should uphold the church’s procedure in handling the narcolepsy, but it cannot sensibly uphold the firing, for that would effectively rule that the interpretation of secular law has no appeal from an ecclesiastical court.
Now that would be a failure of separation of church and state.
As Art points out, this is also a matter of the contract she signed. She agreed to settle disputes through arbitration, and violated the contract.
You must understand that I am not opposed to the idea of ministerial exception. Far from it, I worry very much that government will attempt to force churchs to adjust their practice over things like requiring the clergy to be male, but the one thing the court cannot do is uphold a clause in a contract that prohibits appeal to a court. Even if the court should dismiss the original case as being subject to ministerial exception, it cannot uphold a term in the contract that would bar asking the court. Upholding the punishment for asking the court would say that a church could remove itself from being bound by the law of the land simply by requiring its members not to go to court. It can’t do that.
I agree that if arbitration is specified as a dispute settling mechanism, the court should respect that, but it cannot put itself in a position where it must support any arbitrated settlement just because there is a clause in the contract prohibiting appeal to a court.
Do you want Sharia law? If the court upholds banning appeal to a court because the parties have previously ‘agreed’ not to take an issue to court, then it will not be possible to stop Sharia law enclaves.
This cannot be related to whether or not the court should uphold ministerial exception over the original dispute. The secular court cannot decide whether or not the original case is properly the business of the ecclesiastical court, and no further, if the disputant does not have the right to ask the secular court in the first place. Even if the secular court simply dismisses the complainant’s case with the comment, “this is church business, not ours”, it still cannot uphold a clause that bars asking the court.
We see a similar type of thing where parents are asked to sign a document agreeing not to hold an organization, such as a music camp, responsible for injury to a child while under the care of the organization. The courts must be able to look at and find responsibility if a case is brought to it over an injury to the child due to negligence.
The court cannot allow an organization to remove itself from the jurisdiction of the law simply by putting a clause in a contract. That is not to say that the court cannot dismiss a case as being something contractually subject to arbitration, but it cannot *prohibit* appeal to the court in the first place by upholding a punishment for attempting to do so.
Look, Eric Holder is the evil genie at the heart of the Department of Justice, but 1) He’s not wrong no matter what. You are bound to end up defeated on an issue if you take that position, and 2) a church cannot remove itself from the jurisdiction of the law by writing a contract with its members. Opposing Holder on this is a weak attack which will bring defeat.
Since nobody’s paying me to do the research, I’m not paying to go look up the cites, but the USSC has held that parties can waive their statutory right to sue by agreeing to an arbitration clause in an employment contract. The courts have the right to review the arbtrator’s decision but the arbitrator is entitled to “substantial deference” and courts are not to substitute their judgement but to review only for gross error or fraud. (I think the case involved ITT, but I’ve obviously been retired long enough now that these things don’t just hop out of my mind anymore.) Of course, the USSC has been cautioning lower courts to afford substantial deference and not substitute their judgement since at least the Steelworkers Trilogy in the ’60s, and those peripatetic angels of equity usually just ignore it if they would have done something different, but at least its on the books.
Yes Art, but “The courts have the right to review … for gross error or fraud” is everything here, even though they cannot substitute a different judgement based on case law. The court cannot uphold a punishment of the complainant for asking the court to review the case, which is the courts right and duty.
Holder’s department may be wrong for opposing the original arbitration, but it is not wrong for opposing the firing for attempting to have the arbitration reviewed.
It can’t work that way.
We’re down to the granular level here. I mean 1 + 1 makes 2 and Russell wrote a large book that supposedly proves that, but I can’t get any more fundamental without getting into “it depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is” style of argumentation. If you can’t see that the court can’t logically uphold a punishment for asking the court to review the case, I can’t explain it to you, so I guess I rest here.
OK, sorry for making the 1+1 etc. remark, which probably is a little insulting.
Instead:
If the court upholds the punishment of the complainant for going to court, it is saying to the complainant that she cannot bring a case in for review, that punished for this is correct. The court is undercutting its own right and obligation to review. The complainant cannot be expected to know instinctively where the line, “gross error”, has been crossed. She cannot be expected to trust the church, with whom she has a dispute, to be able to tell her whether or not the church has made a “gross error” (another absurd idea anyway), and she has found lawyers who tell her she has a case. A court cannot uphold her punishment for this without sending the message that disputants in church matters can no longer ask for review for gross error because all a church has to do to prevent it is have it written into the contract that she can’t do it, that it is legally correct that she be punished for it. The court, by upholding the punishment, removes itself from its right and duty of review, and the church has successfully removed itself from being subject to the rule of law.
This is not a broad based attack on church independence or the right to practice religion. It is a narrow and important case that defends that extremely important right to review for “fraud and gross error”.
If not, get ready for Sharia enclaves that operate outside of the law.
@YKW – I’m used to insulting and being insulted by lawyers, it’s one of the few things that all of them seem to do well.
I don’t get from the facts that this was a review of an arbitrator’s decision but rather an attempt by the complainant to avoid the arbitration process by going directly to court. In any event, the SC decided it on other grounds.
@Art Chance.
Congratulations, you won. Unfortunately, after reading the decision, I think the court made a mistake. I am not going to argue on here though, as I said I was done, but if you are interested, you can read my reasoning here.
The Court has long upheld volutary resort to arbitration as a substitute for resort to the courts. Employment contracts that place final resolution in arbitration rather than the courts are commonplace and the USSC has directed that the decisions of arbitrators will be given great deference. Seems to apply here as well, but judges do read newspapers.
Art: “Great deference” does not mean absolute obedience. And, in fact, courts have, and do, overturn arbitrated settlements no matter what the original agreements to arbitrate might have been.
What is unclear about the 1st Amendment? It clearly states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” Holder is clearly violating the free exercise clause.
The last people in America to realize that Holder is a bad man will probably be the Republicans in the House of Representatives. They should have impeached him two months ago. To them we should implore with the words of our spendthrift First Lady, “Let’s Move!”
I’m sure I don’t understand the legal nuances here, but, hypothetically speaking, if the court sees it Holder’s way, does this mean the Mosque can’t require female employees to have clitorectimies as condition of employment, and would the Holder justice department go there?
Much ado about nothing here. The church school is a business that the church is running, most likely to ease the financial burden on an aging congregation. I’m a Lutheran and have sent my kids to church schools like this one.
I believe the government’s position is that the church is not exempt from employment laws when it is running a business. It should be obvious that this is separate from the religious activity of the same church (Sunday services, mission, outreach, etc.). Would you argue that a church is exempt from minimum wage laws, withholding, and all other employment laws if they hire a secretary to assist the pastor?
Those laws you cite (“min wage”) are not directly in conflict with church dogma, church practice, church teaching.
What about the contract agreeing to arbitration? Shouldn’t she be held to the agreement she signed?
Sorry, but I call bullshit. NO American citizen should be denied the right to seek legal redress based on the teachings of some religion. Sorry, but the Constitution trumps Bible, inside the church as well as outside.
I think you need to restudy your American to understand that the Founding Fathers never believed that the US Constitution is superior to the Bible.
I think you need to read Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Benjamin Franklin, all of whom disliked the bible and its associated religions. Jefferson produced his own redacted version of the bible, eliminating miracles and a lot more. Paine, perhaps the most important of the Founders, was so outspoken in his contempt for the Church and Christianity that almost nobody showed up for his funeral. Despite what we claim about freedom of believe in this country, people who don’t publicly subscribe to whatever the consensus is have always been treated like dirt.
That being said, if the woman signed an employment contract that prohibited her from violating church teachings, how can she sue the the church for enforcing the contract? Was this alleged church teaching explained to her beforehand, or is the school just pulling it out of its mitre to excuse its uncharitable behavior?
If firing someone for narcolepsy is Christian, can I, as a non-Christian, fire Christian employees for making me ill with their bible quotes, which derived from minds even less conscious than those of narcoleptics?
The Supreme Court in the past has upheld religious freedom to a terrible extreme, including the supposed right of superstitious Santeria practitioners and Orthodox Greeks here in Florida to cruelly sacrifice animals. When it comes to the Supremes, religious cruelty has always trumped reason, compassion, and fairness. I doubt the Court is suddenly going to develop a conscience.
Congress may not be able to pass any law concerning the establishment of religion or preventing its free exercise, but states certainly can within the limits of their own constitutions.
No, you need to read up on the Founders, the most influential of whom were not Christians and were openly opposed to Christianity. Read the words of Jefferson, Paine, and Franklin, and THEN say the founders didn’t think the Constitution was superior to the bible. They most certainly did, and they were correct. Without these freethinkers, Deists, and unorthodox gentlemen, we would have none of our current freedoms. Left up to the religionists, America would be yet another theocratic empire run by clergymen funded by taxpayers. For two centuries, bible-fanatics have done everything in their power to subvert the Constitution and impose their mindless, conflicting religious beliefs on the populace. Fortunately, their influence has waned to the extent science has waxed, and the number of Americans who describe themselves as bible-believers has plummeted. Yes, most Americans say they believe in God or a god, but no, most do not believe in the bible or its horrifying deity and his eternal tortures of non-believers.
At no place in the world have religionists ever established a free nation where people could think and believe what they want. Only the non-believers and heretics have achieved this level of political and social progress.
Moderator, could you delete one of these two posts of mine (take your pick)? I didn’t mean for both to show up. When, after hours, I didn’t see the original, I assumed I’d done something wrong, and tried again.
Thanks
Florida
Sorry, Western Civ didn’t start with the Enlightenment. Modernism is nothing but the return of anything goes pagan barbarity.
A few things where the Catholic Church has made the world a better and brighter place are:
+ Relief from the Barbarian invasions of the early middle ages
+ Rescued Christian and pre-christian literature
+ Spread agricultural and animal husbandry knowledge
+ Started and protected universities
+ Sponsored and supported science and medicine
+ Created International Law theory
+ Developed and sponsored modern economic theory
+ Invented charity as we know it
+ Codified, expanded, and improved Western Law
+ Developed Western Morality
+ Created just war theory
+ Sponsored and influenced art and architecture
+ Developed the concept of inalienable rights
You can’t be serious. Does the term “Dark Ages” ring a bell? From the time of the Council of Constantinople to the eighteenth century, the Church systematically opposed all science, all learning, and all religion other than its own religion, and routinely murdered anyone and everyone who didn’t embrace its teachings. How many “heretics” did it burn alive for daring to claim the Earth was not the center of the Universe? How many Christians did it murder for not believing in the Trinity?
Having gone to Catholic schools, I’m familiar with the romantic propaganda the Church has used for centuries to whitewash its crimes, and especially during the past century to counter massive historical discoveries disproving almost all of its claims, including its claim to apostolic succession. The evil pagan religions, as you paint them, were often infinitely superior morally and intellectually, and virtually every benign teaching of Christianity was plagiarized from them.
One has only to read the ramblings of the admitted liar Origen and Company and the blatant liar claiming to be Paul (who said he had preached to a nation of people without heads who had eyes in their chests; and no, he wasn’t speaking allegorically) to see the real origins of Christian dogma, based not on fact, history, or reason, but on the grossest and cruelest falsehoods and superstitions ever foisted onto the world, often for political gain. Without the aid of the serial murderer Emperor Constantine (whose pagan priests would not grant him absolution for his butchery, causing him to run to the Christian priests, who happily did so in return for money, power, and imperial sponsorship and protection), there would be no church: a church built on murder, torture, theft, slavery, and the worst abuses of human and animal life ever recorded in the Western world. The oft-described blood and burnt sacrifices of the pagans pale by comparison. The Old Testament portrays a god every bit as obsessed with blood and burnt sacrifices to himself, and the New Testament just gussies him up a bit.
Hindu and Buddhist hospitals and orphanages existed centuries before Christianity was invented.
The Church did NOT sponsor science and medicine; it encouraged exorcisms, insisted the world was flat and square, and executed people for bathing and washing their clothes. Christians burned the second library at Alexandria to destroy as much previous knowledge as possible, and the early Christian fathers boasted of destroying as many pagan books and writings as they could get their hands on, and of lying to advance the cause of Jesus.
So where is the morality? Torture and mass murder of non-believers? Slavery. The horrific subjugation of women? Rampant cruelty to animals? The concept of foisting ones guilt off onto an innocent and killing the innocent in ones own place; i.e., the scape goat principle? The Crusades, the Papal Inquisition, the Spanish Inquisition, the Divine Right of Kings?
Again, you can’t be serious…….
Do you really believe Holder or Obama care about the Constitution?
And if you respect the Constitution and know it, then tell us where it is written that private enterprises cannot hire and fire employees for whatever reason they choose.
Except she signed a contract saying she’d submit disputes to arbitration.
Shouldn’t she be held to the contract she signed? Or are the church’s rights to contract somehow less than anyone else’s?
Contract law means nothing to leftists, and a church’s contract rights mean even less.
Various for profit corporations require arbitration. That stands in court, but “not for profit” corporations, such as churches, cannot require arbitration?
For profit corporations better watch out, or their arbitration requirements are going to get tossed.
I don’t know why the DOJ wants to go there.
Does that mean the court must employ strippers as court attendants in full stripper garb? That would certainly make for some interesting trials.
With so many Harvard graduates working in the government and are actively undermining US as well as global liberty, freedom, and economic viability, I can’t help but question the integrity and knowledge of this University, its academicians, administration, its students and alumni. Other noted questionable universities are Yale, Princeton, Berkely, Oh yeah Columbia, and NYU. If I missed any, please add them on. It is time to expose these Universities for what they are, Commies/Progressive propaganda hell hole (pretentious pseudo intellectuals).
being private universities, they are unfettered by any oversight..
what does Ivy do? this term for those institutions is approbo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy
Invasive exotic domination
Several ivy species have become a serious invasive species (invasive exotic) in natural native plant habitats, (especially riparian and woodland) types, and also a horticultural weed in gardens of the western and southern regions of North America with milder winters. Ivies create a dense, vigorously smothering, shade-tolerant evergreen ground-cover there, that can spread through assertive underground rhizomes and above-ground runners quickly over large natural plant community areas and outcompete the native vegetation. The use of ivies as ornamental plants in horticulture in California and other states is now discouraged or banned in certain jurisdictions.[11] Similar problems exist in Australia. For example, in both countries the North African drought-tolerant H. canariensis and H. algeriensis and European H. helix were originally cultivated in garden, park, and highway landscaping, but have become aggressively invasive in coastal forests and riparian ecosystems now necessitating costly eradication programs.[12]
[edit] Toxicity
The berries are moderately toxic to humans, but are very bitter, so poisoning is rare. Ivy foliage contains triterpenoid saponins and falcarinol, a polyyne; falcarinol is capable of inducing an allergic reaction (contact dermatitis) in some people. People who have this allergy (strictly a Type IV hypersensitivity) are also likely to react to carrots and other members of the Apiaceae as they also contain falcarinol. It has also been shown to kill breast cancer cells.[13]
NDAA FOLLOW-UP AND FURTHER TREASONOUS ACTS By Michael LeMieux January 4, 2012
http://www.newswithviews.com/LeMieux/michael160.htm
Since comments on this column are moderated, why is this obvious spam allowed to be posted?
So churches cannot resolve disputes within their own framework, but Muslim sharia courts are not controversial! Hmmm…..
We have a winner!
Yes, we shouldn’t be worried about judges citing sharia in their decisions, but churches can no longer believe the contracts they enter will be upheld.
J Christian Adams.
I want you to know that you are the most important voice in today’s media.
You know the truth relative to how corrupt and evil the Obamunists truly are. And you express yourself as well as Tom Paine did more than 200 years ago, at a time when this nation was fighting for its very life.
Much like it is today. Many hugs from Rachel.
‘A teacher filed a complaint to the government about how the school handled her narcolepsy, which presumably would involve sleeping at work.’
Do not pass go. If an employer cannot fire an employee for sleeping on the job then the employer effectively becomes a subsidiary of the government. Business are not charity. There is an expense to hiring and maintaing an employee. Sleeping on the job is theft of the employer’s property. An employer who is forced to keep such an employee has had his property taken by the government. If the DoJ insists that this person be retained by the church then the government should properly compensate the employer for the government’s takings. With this,the ADA has jumped the shark and needs to be repealed. ANd we haven’t even reached the church and state issues.
You obviously haven’t lived with that wonderful piece of legislation, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In this case in a sane world on receiving an offer of employment, the employee would have revealed that she had a disability, narcolepsy, that effected the major life activity of working. The employer having made the offer would then be obligated to engage in an interactive process with the employee to determine how the disabled employee could be reasonably accomodated and if an agreement can be made on what constitutes a reasonable accomodation of the disabilty the employees terms and conditions of employment include that reasonable accomodation, e.g., periodic structured nap periods perhaps. In reality, employees rarely reveal a disability at hire but rather “discover” a disability when they get in trouble. When, for example, an employee gets fired for sleeping on the job, almost always a first offense firing offense even in unionized public employment, the employee claims that s/he has the disabling condition of narcolepsy, that the employer failed to reasonably accomodate her, and that the dismissal is discriminatory under the ADA. Of course, you can always find scumbag doctors and pshrinks to testify that the scammer is indeed disabled and scumbag plaintiff’s attorneys who’ll happily take the case on contingency if it involves a large, deep pocketed employer. Actually, a large, deep-pocketed employer could probably win such a case or at least starve the complainant out with protracted and expensive discovery and motion practice, but usually, the employer just offers up a few tens or hundreds of thousands of other people’s money to make the complainant go away. When state of federal EEO offices are involved, the ALWAYS side with the scumbag and the employer gets hit with a generous offer of a consent decree, which if they’ll just sign and pay, the government will get off their back, and if not, the entire government alphabet will be unleashed on said employer. Unfortunately, if the matter ever gets to a jury, there will be twelve morons with driver’s licenses more than happy to give the big rich employer’s money to the scumbags, and at the jury level, it will be millions or tens of millions, so you try really hard to settle rather than face 12 morons with driver’s licenses. In my former life, I was almost always willing to hand over six figures rather than face a jury. You had to take one on once in awhile just to keep the bar somewhat honest, but generally it is cheaper and far better for the employer’s reputation to just give the scumbags some money to go away.
I don’t see the problem. No contract should be able to take away your statutory rights, whatever the justification. If the employee is elligible for recourse under law, nobody can (or should) take that away by her signing on the dotted line – whether she knew that going in or not.
I mean, that’s the biggest problem people have with allowing any elements of sharia law, isn’t it? The thought that sharia might be thought (by anyone) to take precedence over the law of land.
Well, this case tells you why it can’t.
Contracts take away statutory rights. Free people can negotiate out of the default rules. You are probably a party to 10 contracts that waive statutory rights, at least 10.
Not where I live, no. You can’t contract away your statutory rights in australia.
Has this alwasys been the case, Mr. Christian, or is it something new? My naive/untutored opinion had always been that things functioned here as Techno below says they do in Australia. Thanks.
Has already happened, Techno. A judge in Tampa ruled, rightly, that a business dispute between two Muslims should be arbitrated by a Sharia Court instead of civil court. They had entered into a legally binding contract that stated as much. This ruling did not get much fanfare from our press. You probably didn’t even hear about it until now.
Judge Richard Nielsen, yes. But it’s not quite how you tell it. From my brief read, the problem is that the contestants agreed to arbitration process (on “sharia” principles) and one group didn’t like the result. The case concerns some allegedly outsted trustees of a mosque, whom the arbitration process found in favor of. The governors of the mosque have now taken the case to a civil courts – just as the teacher did in the case this thread discusses. So there are a couple of competing considerations – (1) can civil courts get involved at all in the governance decisions of an establishment of religion and (2) can the arbitration process be judged on the basis of the principles it was supposed to uphold (which is where the reference to the koran comes in … but it’d be a brave judge who opened that can of worms).
I think we are all missing one point, albeit I am no legal scholar; she has narcolepsy. Meaning while engaged in employment of teaching children, her “disability” may in fact affect her ability to do her job. Now, if the she wins the law suit for being fired for going against the rules of arbitration by the church, should she not be let go due to her disability? She can of course apply for disability, can she not? Can our government require any employer to higher or retain an employee if their disability greatly affects their ability to do their job effectively or safely? These are children for goodness sake and need to be attended to by a person who can actively and responsibly maintain a classroom. Since she has already opened pandora’s box in bringing the lawsuit for the dismissal, now the church has cleared themselves of self arbitraion and can legally sue for dismissmal based on her inability to do her job.Hence, she would not even be in this position if her disabilty was not a factor.
Seems to me that this is not much different that a union case. When working in a union you agree to take matters of conflict to an arbitrator, not the courts. In fact, you cannot go to court unless and until all attempts at arbitration have been exausted. This is fully legal and supported by our legal system. This woman, as I understand it, entered into a legal contract with a term for dispute resolution by arbitration, not the civil courts. Many commenters here seem to misunderstand how the criminal court system and civil court systems differ in their operation. True, no one can oblige you to surrender your right to a criminal court for a criminal violation, but a contract can bar you from legal dispute in a civil court under certain circumstances.
so let me get this straight — I’m supposed to be exercised because the Catholic Church in America — you know the guys that have institutionalized child molesting and the deceptions necessary to keep on keeping on — have gotten crossways with DOJ over employment law issues? — good luck with that — when did the religious right get so cozy with Catholics anyway — thats a new twist
So the author calls himself “Christian” hahaHAHha hilarious — and he’s here to sell books? hahaHaha OMG… typical religious right radical hypocracy — what’s that the Bible says about greed?
The article never mentions my book. In fact, I mention other books in the comments. But thanks for reminding everyone I have a book.
Update: SCOTUS ruled in favor of the church. Praise God!
I wonder if they would pursue this the same if it involved a muslim. Such as seperating the sexes in a mosque
In that nasty little phrase lies a world of evil.
If the government can simply ignore the law when its “interests” are at stake, we have no Constitution, no rule of law, no liberty except that which the all-powerful government deigns to grant to us.
That legal doctrine has no legal authority, and must have a stake driven through its heart.
So, if I worked for that school and someone slandered me, prompted me to file a lawsuit against them, I could be fired? How about if someone assaulted me at the school? Or what if I were whistleblowing against a child abuser instead of resolving the issue within the school? Could they fire me for that? Without clarification of what the person actually signed, using only the biblical quotation could be excessively broad.
Fortunately, the Supreme Court today issued its unanimous decision in favor of the church and against the EEOC. Sadly, the church was dragged through a tremendous waste of time, energy and money in order to vindicate itself.
http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/10-553.pdf
The Supreme Court seems to have validated the ministerial exemption:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/01/11/supreme-court-delivers-knockout-punch-to-white-house/
The USSC just sided with the school relying on the “ministerial exemption” in a unanimous decision, though there were some dissenting concurrences in the judgement, notably from Thomas.
I’m Ok with it that way, but I think they didn’t have to get there and could have relied solely on the arbitration clause, but then I’m not a judge.
“…dissenting concurrences…”?? Can you explain? I thought this was a unanimous decision. Thanks.
The arbitration clause is not applicable b/c Perich never went to arbitration, she merely threatened under ADA. However, DOJ did not argue under ADA rather argued retaliation b/c the school relied on statutory clause 42 U.S.C. § 12113(c)(1), which provides that “[u]nder this subchapter, a religious organization may require that all applicants and employees conform to the religious tenets of such organization.” Thou shall not sue the church IS one of their religious tenets. She was terminated NOT for her disability but for her threat of EEOC action. She made no attempt to comply with an arbitration.
Holder used wrong argument ‘retaliatory action” rather than ADA covered ‘discrimination.’ Practically speaking however, her disability was not medically suitable for the position and it became more nebulous as her doctor continuously changed date of return. Without having her disability under full control, the school could not make a “reasonable accommodation” for her considering she was teaching your children even if she sued under discrimination which she did not.
However, IMO, the DOJ/Holder would not have gotten involved had the minister/teacher not been black.
Amazingly, yesterday the Court rendered a UNANIMOUS verdict in favor of the church.
Roberts: “By requiring the Church to accept a minister it did not want, such an order would have plainly violated the Church’s freedom under the Religion Clauses to select its own ministers. …
“The exception … ensures that the authority to select and control who will minister to the faithful is the church’s alone.”
Huge smackdown of this administration. Too bad most people won’t hear much about it or understand its implications.
While DOJ USAG Eric Holder may be quietly attacking religious liberties of Americans today, I can assure you that tomorrow he WILL be defending Jeremiah Wright and Black Liberation Theology and the reparations and socialist theories he espouses as viable and valid religious dogma, because they are based in a faith in GOVERNMENT. Socialist government to be specific.
If you think for one moment that this criminal enterprise we are very loosely referring to as a government is going to allow another way to control the people of this nation to slip away, you don’t understand the criminal mind or this government.
Response Florida Jan 11, 2011 8:59 PM Comment
The Inquisition. Instead of a fact less rant, let’s address facts. We aren’t afraid of facts. Lets focus only on the nefarious Spanish Inquisition.
Started in 1478, a state institution used to identify conversos—Jews and Moors who pretended to convert to Christianity for purposes of political or social advantage and secretly practiced their former religion. More importantly, its job was also to clear the good names of many people who were falsely accused of being heretics.
Many non-Catholics use authors Lea and Holby for their statistics. While they did make good progress in basic research, their animosity toward the Church raises questions on how well they weighed the available facts. It seems unlikely that 95 million people could have been killed. On the other hand, many Catholics white wash or gloss over what really did happen. Is there any point in point to the noting Protestant inquisitions or the persecutions of RC’s in Ireland and England each equally vile?
What is the point here? Just this… Catholics are sinners? Guilty as charged. That at times people in positions of authority have used poor judgment? Ditto. That otherwise good Catholics, afire with zeal, sometimes lose their balance? All true.
Boy, there is a lot more that can be discussed and I’d love to continue with you. Shall we also discuss specifics of Slavery and Women as you note? I’d be interested in continuing the discussion with you.
The Roman Catholic Church remains the primary defender of human dignity and life.
Ad Jesu par Mariam
Every advance of the Catholic Church has happened since the Renaissance, when PAGAN ideals resurfaced and the Church’s power began to wane. Judge an institution by what it does when it has all power, not by what it does when it has little or none.
And when I used the all-inclusive term “Church” earlier, I wasn’t limiting it to the Catholic. In England, the Anglican Church engaged in the most horrific behaviors as long as it had the power and funds to do so. Note that today, with its shriveling membership, it gushes on and on about human rights: something it never mentioned in its heyday.
Until the abolition of slavery in the mid nineteenth century, both the Catholic and the Episcopal Churches in America not only sanctioned slavery, but sent their priests and bishops to bless the ships of slave-traders. The Archbishops of Canterbury were slumlords for centuries, and well in the twentieth. As their power and wealth has drastically diminished, so has grown their alleged concern for the public and the planet.
Our government was founded on the concepts of a democratic republic, concepts derived from ancient Greece and Rome, not from the bible or the Christian Church, which promoted monarchy and slavery, and utterly denied the rights of the common man. There is nothing in the history of the ancient church to praise. For over a thousand years, it spent all its time and effort on infighting, suppressing so called heresy, inventing dogmas and doctrines, and amassing wealth and power. There is not a single virtue mentioned in its teachings which wasn’t native to the pagan religions it plagiarized for its mythology and rituals, and then turned around at denigrated.
Until the rise of Islam, there was no other religion in world history that remotely approached the savagery and cruelty of Judaism and Christianity. What pagan religion can you name that forced people to convert at the point of a sword or with the treat of being burned alive in this world and forever in the next? That tortured and murdered people for a crime of not believing in something?
So what if the Catholic Church is NOW a defender of human rights and life? It wasn’t before. Inquisitors routinely torched pregnant women, or timed their births so their babies would be born into a pyre (this was also popular in Protestant countries). Children, including babies, were routinely convicted of heresy and put to death. The only reason they aren’t still is because “heretics” who dared to question all of this gained the ascendancy, and eventually won the argument.
To fall back on the lame defense that Christians too are sinners and make mistakes is ludicrous. Only Christians have a history of mass murder, later excused with an “Oops, we’re only human,” while continuing to insist they alone have the Truth and the Keys to Heaven, and anyone who doesn’t fall down and worship their bloodthirsty god is doomed eternally. If they believed they would answer for their crimes, they would not have committed them, but they had get out of jail passes straight from God because of a scape goat who’d supposedly taken the blame on their behalf. They still believe this. And the Protestants have the insane doctrine of predestination, learned from the rants of Paul, that means one can do anything he wants whenever he wants, because his salvation or damnation was decided at the beginning of time. Who else but a selfish coward worships a God who damns the entire planet, but then hands out escape clauses to a chosen few?
The real legal precedent to all this is the “free association” clause in the Bill of Rights. It’s the same freedom of association that allows groups like the Boy Scouts of America to disallow gay troop leaders. It’s also the same freedom of association that allows the American Nazi Party to disallow black and jewish members (as if they’d want to join). The point is, that an association has the freedom to set the parameters of membership. If you don’t like the parameters of the membership, you have the freedom to create your own group with it’s own rules. (Compare AARP with AMAC, for instance.)
The government has one option: They can legally withhold any government funds if the group doesn’t change it’s policies. That’s only a threat if you’re dependent on such funding.
I know the answer: don’t ever hire anyone.
Gee! I wonder why unemployment is so high? It is far too troublesome to hire anyone, and they uniformly suck. They have no idea that they need to produce in order for me to pay them. When they do show up, they are late and stoned. They break more stuff than they produce. At the very point when they begin to understand their jobs, they leave for ten cents an hour more, in a completely different field, where they are still completely clueless. And O’Stupid thinks we need more regulations. And health care. And whatever else he can wrap his tiny little brain around. Just as long as he ain’t payin’ for it.
I have a really simple answer. I’ve stopped paying employees. I buy automated equipment. The middleman has been eliminated! When visitors hear noise coming from the shop, they ask who I hired. I tell them that all that noise they hear is my imaginary Polack. He never stops, never drinks, never takes a dump, never breaks the machine from stupidity and inattention. I have to be better educated to run all this stuff, but my anxiety level has dropped a thousandfold. I should have done this years ago. A $60,000 machine isn’t so expensive when a half-dead body costs $80,000 a year, and might never produce any useful thing at all.
Have fun on unemployment! Then welfare! Then soup lines. I tried to smarten you mooks up for 40 years. Never worked. Good luck!
Florida: By your comments you were reprogrammed at a liberal arts school such as Washington U. at St. Louis, MO. You were taught ‘Groupthink’ and ‘BlameWhitey’, all marxist doctrines to tear down institutions that have served our country for 235 years. It is shamefull that the US Catholic church does not have a Bishop Fulton Scheen to counter these dangerous teachings at our Universities. It is also fundementally flawed that only 2% of college curriculums still require Western Civ since 1815. It will be our downfall as a country, that we turn our back on our own history, and promote Latino,Afro or Islam studies, cultures that were 10 centuries behind Northern European culture.
A Desert Rat, you are certainly well-named.
Everything else about your letter is erroneous, but keep guessing.