Tag: Religious Freedom

Arkansas A.G. Signs Amicus Brief in Defense of Religious Liberty

Last week Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge’s office signed an amicus brief in the case of Trinity Lutheran v. Pauley.

In a nutshell, the case has to do with whether or not a religious organization can be barred from participating in programs available to other organizations simply because the organization happens to be religious. This particular case centers on, of all things, a type of recycling program in which scrap tires are used to provide safe, rubber surfaces on children’s playgrounds in Missouri.

Alliance Defending Freedom writes,

“The [amicus] briefs support a church-run preschool and daycare center that the state of Missouri said is qualified for the program, which provides reimbursement for recycled tire products to surface children’s playgrounds, but then disqualified from the program anyway only because the church is religious.”

Of course the real question, here, is not so much about recycled tires as it is about the State of Missouri trying to discriminate against churches and religious organizations in its public programs.

The amicus brief signed by Attorney General Rutledge’s office reads in part,

Missouri claims that its Scrap Tire Program serves to convert old rubber into a safer environment for all Missourians, from those who live near dump sites to children who fall on softer surfaces. So why is it relevant that an applicant for such a grant happens to be a church?

The answer is very simple: It isn’t relevant. Being religious does not disqualify a person or organizations from participation in public life, plain and simple.

If you would like to thank the Arkansas Attorney General for standing up for religious liberty, you can call her office at (501) 682-2007.

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Denying True Coexistence

John Stonestreet with the Colson Center for Christian Worldview has released an excellent commentary on the growing intolerance for basic religious liberty.

Stonestreet writes,

Exhibit A is the new Mississippi law that ensures that churches and other religious groups aren’t punished for declining to participate in weddings against their convictions, or for setting personnel and housing policies based on their deeply held beliefs.

Further, this law allows private businesses and schools to set their own policies for bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms. In that sense, the law models peaceful coexistence on very contentious social issues.

But one corporation, IBM is claiming that, “(T)his legislation will permit discrimination against people based on their marital status, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression.”

Not so, according to Jennifer Marshall. The law protects those with religious scruples from being discriminated against. “What the new law does,” she points out, “is to prevent discrimination by ensuring the government will not force people to violate their consciences in very specific contexts spelled out by the law.”

You can read Stonestreet’s full commentary here or listen to it below.

[audio:http://www.breakpoint.org/images/content/breakpoint/audio/2016/042116_BP.mp3|titles=No Tolerance for Religious Tolerance?]

Photo Credit: By Nevadaresident (Own work) via Wikimedia Commons.

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What This Judge’s Ruling in Nebraska Means for Religious Liberty

On Tuesday a judge in Nebraska correctly dismissed a lawsuit by a prisoner who claimed his religious beliefs as a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster were not being honored.

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is generally viewed as a parody religion. It began in 2005 as a satiric response to a decision in Kansas to teach intelligent design in public schools.

The inmate who filed the lawsuit claimed that as a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, he ought to be afforded the right to wear religious clothing and pendants, meet for weekly worship, take communion, and so on.

If you are curious what “religious attire,” a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster might want to wear, here’s an article about one member who filed an appeal against the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles in order to wear a colander on her head for her driver’s license photo. Judge Gerrard also notes in his ruling that the “Flying Spaghetti Monster Gospel” encourages adherents to wear pirate costumes and take communion in the form of “a large portion of spaghetti and meatballs.”

On Tuesday Judge Gerrard in Nebraska wrote,

“The Court finds that [the Flying Spaghetti Monster movement] is not a ‘religion’ within the meaning of the relevant federal statutes and constitutional jurisprudence. It is, rather, a parody, intended to advance an argument about science, the evolution of life, and the place of religion in public education. Those are important issues, and [the Flying Spaghetti Monster movement] contains a serious argument, but that does not mean that the trappings of the satire used to make that argument are entitled to protection as a ‘religion.’ Nor, the Court finds, has Cavanaugh [the inmate who filed the suit] sufficiently alleged how the exercise of his ‘religion’ has been substantially burdened.”

The lawsuit is significant, because the inmate who filed it invoked the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as well as Nebraska’s constitutional provisions protecting religious liberty and the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.

In spite of all this, the judge still dismissed the suit.

The dismissal highlights the simple fact that it is incredibly difficult to misuse or abuse the free exercise of religion. Lately when states consider religious freedom legislation–like the Religious Freedom Restoration Act signed into law in Arkansas last year–many people immediately raise concerns about possible ways the legislation might be abused. This case in Nebraska highlights the fact it is extremely difficult for a person to do so.

You cannot chalk any behavior up to “the free exercise of religion” and get away with it, plain and simple.

You can read the judge’s full ruling here.

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