(no subject)

[theweaselking]

US Supreme Court: employment antidiscrimination laws do not apply to church employees, as long as even the most insignificant portion of your duties includes a religious obligation.

Comments

[skington.livejournal.com]

I like how nobody in the court addresses the unfortunate problem that the employee was dismissed for entirely non-religious reasons.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

They do! They feel that it is irrelevant that she was dismissed for failure to complete the nonreligious duties that make up the vast majority of her work, because she has an insignificant amount of religious duties each day and those are what really matters.

[skington.livejournal.com]

Even if you accept their argument that religious organisations can fire people for religious reasons (on a sort of first amendment basis), so churches can carry on hating on teh gays, this still doesn't support randomly firing someone because they got sick.

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

Having read fairly widely on this case, it's not clear to me whether she was terminated because she was sick, or because she threatened to sue. One article said that her replacement was a temporary hire on a one year contract, which isn't at all unusual in cases of sabbatical or medical leave. That part of the story is really unclear, which is really unfortunate because it's right where the injustice that the rest hinges on lies.

The ministerial exception is a well established precedent, though I think this is the first time that a case involving it has gone all the way to the Supreme Court. (Somebody somewhere asked about a religious employer firing someone who reported sexual abuse within the institution. That was at issue in Weishuhn v Catholic Diocese of Lansing and the Michigan Court of Appeals found in favor of the diocese.) The question here isn't directly the employee's religion or whether they adhere to doctrine. It's whether their job involves being a minister, and who gets the right to define that. SCOTUS was essentially being asked to rule whether Perich was a minister. They declined to do that.

I really, really wonder how this would've turned out if she'd still had the status of a lay teacher when all this went down.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

This one hurt. If laws don't apply to religious institutions...

Next step: they hire 11 year old boys for important 'candle polishing' duties, sue when parents complain...

[publius1.livejournal.com]

It surprises me that there has been no media pressure on the Lutheran Church to explain why they were so unreasonable regarding this woman's medical needs in the first place. Before it ever got to the USSC, it would have been nice for there to be some public pressure on the church to not be gigantic dicks to this woman.

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

They're Missouri Synod. I'm entirely unsurprised that they're being dicks.

[kierthos.livejournal.com]

Yeah, SCOTUS fucked this one up. Big shocker.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

If I just get all my employees to say a Hail Mary each morning, can I rip up their rights and get tax breaks too?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

First: You have to make it *their job* to say a Hail Mary, but yes to ripping up their rights.
Second: No, tax-exempt status is different and has different requirements.

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

Pretty much.

Not every religious institution has a faith requirement, and not all those that do require it of every employee. (The one I work for is like this. They don't care what my beliefs are or whether I have any, and by no stretch of the imagination could I be considered a minister.) I didn't even bother applying to the places that included a statement of faith as a condition of employment, because, well, I wasn't gonna lie even if I thought it was stupid. (Besides, I'd have hated working in those places.)

I read a couple of things in the court decision that made it seem like the school was looking for reasons to get rid of Perich, but admittedly I am totally reading between the lines on that one.