Arkansas Supreme Court Issues Good Ruling on Fayetteville Ordinance

Religious Freedom, , ,

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, February 23, 2017

On Thursday the Arkansas Supreme Court issued a ruling effectively striking a Fayetteville ordinance granting special protections to people based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Family Council President Jerry Cox released a statement, saying, “This is a good ruling. Laws about discrimination are best left to the state and federal governments. The City of Fayetteville overstepped when it passed this ordinance. I’m glad the Arkansas Supreme Court understood that and struck the ordinance down.”

Cox criticized the Fayetteville ordinance, saying, “The ordinance granted special protections for people based on sexual orientation and gender identity, but it failed to protect religious Arkansans. Under this ordinance, a minister could have been penalized for declining to solemnize a same-sex marriage, and people of faith who own catering services, florist shops, wedding venues, and so on could have been penalized for declining to participate in or cater to same-sex ceremonies. One of the founding principles of our nation is the free exercise of religion. Fayetteville’s ordinance penalized people for living and operating according to their faith. The Arkansas Supreme Court did the right thing in striking this ordinance.”

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El Dorado Stands Firm Against Atheist Group

Religious Freedom, , , ,

Recently we wrote how the City of El Dorado wasn’t yielding to atheist groups who oppose the city’s 40 Days of Prayer campaigns.

This week Americans United for Separation of Church and State took to the Internet, complaining El Dorado “went ahead with a planned ’40 Days of Prayer’ event in October despite a warning from Americans United.”

Hats off to everyone in El Dorado for exercising their religious liberties and refusing to yield to these groups from out of state! Public prayer is a longstanding tradition in this country, as are calls to prayer from public officials.

Meanwhile, a Nativity scene in Michigan has been relocated from a public park to a church’s property following complaints from the atheist group Freedom From Religion Foundation. FFRF has worked since 2007 to get the Nativity scene removed from public property in Menominee, MI–even though the Nativity scene is a longstanding tradition in that town.

As we have written numerous times, public officials and local governments can celebrate Christmas, and the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled those celebrations can include Nativity displays and similar decorations. Nativity scenes do not have to be placed on private property to be constitutional. They can appear on public property without violating the First Amendment.

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H.B. 1021 Could Undermine Churches’ Religious Liberties

Religious Freedom,

I want to tell you about a bill that has been filed at the Arkansas Legislature dealing with churches and the issues of gender and gender-identity. The bill does not immediately force churches to employ transgender individuals or ordain female ministers, but I am concerned that is what it could lead to in the long run, depending on how our courts interpret the law.

Currently, the Arkansas Civil Rights Act of 1993 prevents employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of gender, and Arkansas’ wage discrimination laws prevent employers from paying employees different salaries based on each employee’s biological sex. This means an employer cannot refuse to hire women and cannot pay male employees different salaries from female employees for the same work. However, both laws contain exemptions for religious organizations; this generally prevents churches from being sued for refusing to ordain female ministers or for assigning men and women different responsibilities within the ministry.

House Bill 1021 by Rep. Fred Love (D – Little Rock) removes the religious exemption from Arkansas’ wage discrimination law, and it changes the word “sex” in the law to “gender.”

In this day and age “sex” and “gender” are no longer viewed as the same thing. Many people now consider a person’s biological sex and a person’s gender completely unrelated. Transgender activists claim a man’s biological sex can be male, but his gender—or gender-identity—can be female. This means H.B. 1021 arguably writes gender-identity into Arkansas’ wage discrimination laws.

Here’s the bottom line: If this law passes, in the short run, the courts might penalize churches that, for example, do not ordain female ministers or that assign men and women different responsibilities within the ministry. In the long run, they may even penalize churches for firing or refusing to hire transgender individuals. A lot of it depends on how judges interpret—or reinterpret—state laws.

Bills like H.B. 1021 may not seem all that bad to some people, but they chip away at churches’ religious liberties. We need to consider the long term effects laws like this could have on churches and other religious organizations. We also need to do as much as possible to make sure churches can operate in a manner consistent with their religious convictions.

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