Are religious schools exempt from civil law in the United States? (lawyer, radical)

[arjay57]

Interesting arguments in the Supreme Court today.

A Lutheran church school claims that religious organizations should be exempt from civil rights law. The school fired a disabled teacher but claims it had the right to do so because she was in effect a "minister" of the church.

"It doesn't matter why she was discharged," says the school's lawyer, University of Virginia law professor Douglas Laycock. "What matters is that she was performing ministerial functions, and churches get to decide for themselves who their ministers ought to be...."We're not saying that this is a majority of her job," he says. Rather, "it is a majority of the religious instruction that these children are going to get, even if they go to Sunday school." In short, he says in his brief, Perich was the "primary instrument for communicating the faith to her students."

Supreme Court Weighs Rights Of Parochial-School Teachers

Apparently the leaders of other faiths are all united behind the school. "Leaders of Roman Catholics, Mormons, Presbyterians, United Methodists, Seventh-day Adventists, Hindus, United Sikhs, Muslims, Episcopalians, Reform Jews and Orthodox Jews are united. So are the conservative National Association of Evangelicals and its liberal counterpart, the National Council of Churches."

Religious leaders line up in support of Supreme Court case

The teacher says that exempting institutions from the law on religious grounds would be "...a 'radical proposition' that would exempt from the nation's civil rights laws hundreds of thousands of teachers and administrators, and potentially millions of employees who work not just for schools but for other organizations with religious affiliations.

Taken to its logical conclusion, [the teacher's lawyer] contends, it would mean that a religious organization could bar its employees from reporting to civil authorities that children are being sexually abused, or that health and safety violations are taking place. 'A religious organization has no such constitutional entitlement to become a law unto itself,' he argues."

[EinsteinsGhost]

And, state laws. Google "Fairhaven Baptist Church, Indiana" and "child abuse".

[Katarina Witt]

I heard part of this story on NPR this morning. As a Lutheran, I'm very disturbed by the actions of this school.

[arjay57]

I wonder how the opponents of Sharia law in the U.S. feel about this?

If the Lutherans are exempt from U.S law, you'd think other religions would be too.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by arjay57

I wonder how the opponents of Sharia law in the U.S. feel about this?

If the Lutherans are exempt from U.S law, you'd think other religions would be too.

It's not quite the same. The Lutherans, in this case, are claiming to be exempt from US law. Sharia imposes a different set of laws altogether.

As you see, the Lutherans are being backed up by a large number of religious groups, including the Muslims.

[Jaggy001]

Seems to me that religious organizations want to be exempt from the law (they are already exempt from tax), want to impose their own view of how society should be organized (e.g. abortion) and want the benefits that society offers but none of the costs.