Religion-only accommodation question

[Lund, Christopher]

            I don't know much about this and want to learn more.  Are
religious institutions really able to use judicial or legislative exemptions
to defend themselves against crimes of physical or sexual abuse?  It seemed
to me that virtually any harm to others was enough to get your judicial
claim for exemption quickly denied or your existing legislative exemption
deemed unconstitutional.  What concrete examples are there where religious
entities have used religion-only accommodations (legislative or judicial) to
pull off such harm?  (I know that religious entities can use
religion-neutral laws or accommodations to harm people, but that's true for
all groups, not just religious ones.  And I know that religious entities
have sometimes tried to use religion-only accommodations to impose harm on
others, but in the examples I have seen, they always lose.)

 

            Chris

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Hamilton02 at aol.com [mailto:Hamilton02 at aol.com] 
Sent: Friday, April 08, 2005 10:15 AM
To: religionlaw at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: Re: Religion-only accommodation question

 

Labeling religions "majoritarian" and "minority" is both bootstrapping and
inaccurate.  There is no majority religion in the United States.  For your
purposes, I would think the better classification would be politically
powerful and politically powerless.

 

Religions have been responsible for a great deal of harm in world history,
including now.  I am not at all referring to the harm engendered between
faiths, but rather the actual harm inflicted on third parties by religious
entities, where the religious entities employ the First Amendment and/or
general religious liberty principles to insulate themselves from
responsibility to the common good.  Land use is part of it, but not the
largest or most important part.  The most significant victims of religious
entities in my world view are the thousands upon thousands of children who
have suffered (1) childhood sexual abuse by trusted clergy,  (2) permanent
disability or death through faith-healing, and (3) physical abuse.  The law
has been orchestrated as a shield around these entities (through expansive
readings of the First Amendment or legislative accommodation that fails to
take into account the needs of the child).  These are harms that are
worldwide, and not even close to being eradicated.  Had the law been applied
to religious entities as Smith prescribes and had legislators acted as
filters rather than ciphers, there would be many fewer victims.  

 

Marci

 

Of course majoritiarian religion has harmed minority religions.  On this
precise point reasonable people cannot disagree.  Where we part company is
over your claim that religions, generally, majoritarian or otherwise, harm
people. 

 

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