Supreme Knight Anderson: Ghettoization Coming

An interesting analysis I haven't seen anywhere else is given here by Supreme Knight Carl Anderson, head of the Knights of Columbus.  Excerpts:

...Arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC late last year, the administration sought unprecedented limits on the autonomy of churches and religious institutions in employment matters.

The administration argued that the free-exercise clause of the First Amendment is not relevant to any “ministerial exception” in employment law claimed by religious institutions. To the extent that the administration was willing to recognize any exception, it wanted such exceptions “limited to those employees who perform exclusively religious functions.”

So radical was the administration’s reasoning that the Supreme Court unanimously disagreed, saying: “We are unsure whether any such employees exist,” because even the highest-ranking churchmen have “a mix of duties,” not all of which are religious....



Having argued for a ministerial exception in employment law incompatible with ministry in the Hosanna-Tabor case, the administration next proposed a conscience exemption for religious organizations incompatible with their religious conscience and core religious beliefs.

The administration would grant an exemption to the HHS regulations only if a religious organization hired people who share its beliefs. Simultaneously in Hosanna-Tabor, it argued that religious organizations ought to have very little autonomy in employment decisions.

...Many are asking: What comes next? The National Right to Life Committee makes a compelling case that the latest administration compromise on the HHS mandate paves the way for mandated coverage of “abortion on demand,” pointing out that such a move would be consistent with the administration’s prior logic.

...Worse still, with the combined effect of the administration’s arguments in the HHS regulations and Hosanna-Tabor, people of faith see the real possibility of having religious protection relegated by one policy to the very ghetto scheduled for demolition by another.

We the people won’t give up the first freedom guaranteed in our Bill of Rights. And the administration shouldn’t ask us to. Instead, following the example of the Supreme Court in its unanimous ruling on religious liberty last month, the administration should put ideology aside and work to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States...

In other words, these decisions, if they had both held, would have seriously limited the independent action of the Church.  Think of the implications under non-discrimination laws, for instance, if the category of Church employees were defined so narrowly.