Employment Discrimination Laws Now Don't Apply to Churches
Today the U.S. Supreme Court held that churches and their related organizations are exempt from employment laws in dealing with certain employees. Do you think this is a good decision? I don't.
The Constitution mandates the separation of church and state and Chief Judge Roberts relied upon this principle to exempt religious organizations from the laws that everyone else has to follow.
A church now can fire a black minister because he is black - they can send the minister a letter on church letter head saying "dear minister - you are fired because we don't want black people in our church." Now this is perfectly legal because a church did it. This free pass on employment law extends to all religious organizations like schools and hospitals so they can now fire certain employees for being black, pregnant, gay, disabled, old, female or from another country.
Employment discrimination is now legal in churches and related entities. If you happen to teach religion at a religious school, you should know that you are now in bubble zone that permits overt discrimination. If you are fired for having cancer or being gay or old, please do not bother to call our law firm because we cannot help you anymore.
There should be a separation of church and state. But does this mean that religious organizations should be exempt from the laws that protect people from discrimination? Constitutional rights are not absolute, they are tempered by the government's ability to prevent proscribed destructive behavior (crimes, civil rights etc), why are churches any different? What good can come from allowing religious organizations to act like bigots?
