Catholic Charities Issue

[Newsom Michael]

Virtually all of the religious claims that you refer to involve efforts
to exclude, marginalize or, perhaps, even worse.  Of course those who
are excluded or marginalized, or worse, would resist, as well they
should. 

 

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From: Marc Stern [mailto:mstern at ajcongress.org] 
Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2006 8:48 AM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: RE: Catholic Charities Issue

 

You could add the op[position to enhance d protection for religions
workers in the workplace because such legislation might empower claims
impinging on gay rights, gay groups that sued Yeshiva University over it
refusal to allow gay couples access to  a married only dorm in its
medical school, the opposition to an exemption for Catholic Charities in
Boston, the suit over doctors refusing to assist  lesbian couple have a
child by artificial insemination and on and on....What ever the merits
of particular suits, there has been as pattern of opposition to
religious claims in the gay rights context. 

.

Marc Stern

f

 

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From: religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Douglas Laycock
Sent: Monday, March 20, 2006 8:25 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: RE: Catholic Charities Issue

 

 

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From: religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu on behalf of Newsom Michael
Sent: Mon 3/20/2006 3:36 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: RE: Catholic Charities Issue

Could you give some examples of gay rights proponents who ignore
religious liberty interests?  

 

Doug Laycock's Answer:  The gay rights groups organized and led the
charge that killed the Religious Liberty Protection Act.  They did it by
insisting on a categorical exception for all civil rights cases,
refusing to rely on the case law that most civil rights claims present
compelling interests or their own view that all civil rights claims
present compelling interests.

 

"All civil rights claims" would include challenges to the male-only
priesthood.  It would include claims of religious discrimination in
awarding membership or leadership positions in churches and other
religions organizations.  In Colorado and several other states, civil
rights laws prohibit employers from penalizing "any lawful off-the-job
activity."  So civil rights claims include any immoral, disreputable,
but not illegal act you can think of:  using pornography, appearing in
pornography, moonlighting at a strip club, gambling heavily in lawful
casinos, and similar things that religious organizations might tell
their employees not to do.  The gay rights groups and the coalition of
civil rights organizations they put together refused to listen to any
such argument.  They wanted a global and absolute civil rights
exception; take it or leave it.  They produced party-line gridlock over
that demand.

 

At the state and local level, gay rights groups insist on no religious
exemption to gay rights laws or, if they can't prevail on that, the
narrowest possible definition of religious organizations entitled to
exemption.

 

I assume it was these recurring political conflicts, in which gay rights
groups simply refuse to recognize any competing interest on the other
side of the table, that Alan Brownstein was referring to, and not the
occasional acts of disruptive protest.

 

Of course many of the conservative religious groups are equally
intractable with respect to gay rights organizations.  In the particular
case of RLPA, most of them were at all time willing to concede the
compelling-interest exception, fully understanding that courts were
likely to find a compelling interest in most civil rights claims.

 

 

 

Douglas Laycock

University of Texas Law School

727 E. Dean Keeton St.

Austin, TX  78705

512-232-1341

512-471-6988 (fax)

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