Religious Liberty & the US Supreme Court Today

Family policy matters in engaging and informative weekly radio show and podcast produced by the North Carolina family policy Council hi this is John Ralston, presidency, family, and were grateful to have you with us for this week's program is our prayer that you will be informed, encouraged and inspired by what you hear on family policy matters and that you will fold better equipped to be a voice of persuasion, family values in your community, state and nation, and now here's our house to family policy matters. Tracy Devitt Griggs thanks for joining us this week for family policy matters.

The US Supreme Court recently issued rulings on several cases of dramatic importance to religious liberty in our country some reason for celebration and others profoundly disappointing. The two cases will discuss today.

Come on the heels of the high court's disappointing decision to redefine the term sex and federal law. A ruling that will likely contribute to much more conflict over religious liberty in coming years to discuss the implications of these decisions where speaking with Luke Goodrich senior counsel with the Becket fund for religious liberty which participated in a few of these important cases that finally found successful resolution at the US Supreme Court this year. Luke Goodrich.

Welcome back to family policy matters so much gravity will start with one of the most well-known and longest running religious freedom cases, the court has heard this session, the one involving the Little sisters of the poor when the Supreme Court decided in will this finally put this case to rest. The poor are an order of Catholic nuns who devote their lives to caring for the elderly poor, and almost a decade ago, during the Obama administration, the federal government issued a regulation that would have required the little sisters to use their health insurance to provide coverage for drugs that could cause an abortion. The little sisters sought protection from the Supreme Court and a number of years ago, the Supreme Court basically told the government to go back to the drawing board and surely the most powerful government in the world can find a way to distribute contraception without using Catholic nuns and so after that ruling from the trunk was elected in the truck administration issued a new regulation protecting the Little sisters of the poor, but unfortunately several Democrat state Atty. Gen. challenged that rule challenging the protection of the poor and said it was actually unlawful for the government to protect the little sister. So we Becket took the little sisters case back to the US Supreme Court in a big 7 to 2 victory.

The court ruled that it was permissible for the company ministration to protect the Little sisters of the poor in effect, the government has to consider religious freedom when it's enacting regulations. The bottom line little to the poor can get back to doing what they do best, caring for the elderly poor without having the government looking over their shoulder. You also represented the successful case involving two Catholic schools regarding staffing decisions tell us about that case is history and ruling we Becket represented to religious schools in California and they had to let go of a couple other teachers for poor performance and those teachers sued the school, claiming that the school was discriminating and because these teachers teach not only the ordinary secular curriculum. They also teach religion back to the main one the main ways of the church tries to convey the faith to the next generation. We argued that the government should have no business telling religious schools who is going to teach the face to the next generation and we have won a victory on this issue.

Becket back in 2012, a unanimous ruling from the Supreme Court that churches have to be able to choose their leaders without government interference, and in this decision of the court again by broad margin 72 victory ruled that religious organizations and religious schools. They have a First Amendment right to make important management decisions that affect how they communicate the face in the next generation. And so the court rejected the lawsuits by these teachers protected the freedom of the church to choose who will teach the base to the next generation. For most of those are very encouraging. So do they have wider implications for other religious organizations and in their employees or is this just one of those narrow cases both of you who have very broad implications for religious organizations across the country. The little system.

The court case there were literally hundreds actually thousands of religious organization that were affected by the regulations forcing organizations to use their own health insurance plan to cover drugs that can cause an abortion. That ruling protects really religious organizations across the country that would benefit from the protections in the new rule in the second case involving teachers and religious schools really affect any religious organization that's trying to communicate the faith to the next generation.

Some of these lawsuits can be highly invasive and can really threaten religious organizations not only with hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in damages, ruling, loss of control over who is going to teach the faith to that generation and so that decision from the Supreme Court protects religious organizations and their freedom to choose who is going to communicate their message to the next generation. But both of these victories is important to underscore that they were by seven. The two margins are not narrow five different victories and even among the dissenters.

There was broad agreement that religious organizations have to have a First Amendment right to control their message on a more somber note, the Supreme Court also issued this summer, a landmark ruling in a case regarding the definition of sex and antidiscrimination laws so talk about that.

What potential impacts will that ruling have on the freedom of employers like your clients to make staffing decisions that align with their religious tenets back to the boss.the fusion was very troubling, and how the court redefined Jackson redefine federal law to cover termination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

The reason is so far-reaching is that hundred and thousands of religious organizations have expectations have strongly held beliefs about human sexuality and often expect their employees to uphold and agree with those beliefs and so the boss.decision potentially opens the floodgates to a lot of lawsuits against religious organizations.

We think there are strong legal arguments to be made that religious groups can't be forced to hire employees who violate their core religious teachings.

We see this in a variety of organizations any mission driven organization really hires employees who support their mission and religious groups are no different in the fact they receive even stronger protection under the First Amendment to the free exercise of religion so you think there will be more lawsuits, but we think we have a good shot at winning the suits for those of us who are conservatives and who applauded a conservative majority on the US Supreme Court.

Some of these decisions aren't exactly what we expected pattern here though. Are you seeing any kind of pattern regarding the US Supreme Court's decisions on religious liberty while the overarching pattern from the US in court on religious freedom is victory for religious freedom over the last decade have been around 15 religious freedom cases Supreme Court, and in all 15 of those cases, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the religious party and in favor of religious freedom so there is strong reason to believe that the court is favorable toward religious freedom is issued a number of good decisions.

The big exception from this term was the boss.decision expanding federal law to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. That is a deeply troubling decision, but even in that decision, the court recognized that there are important religious liberty implications at stake. I think the Supreme Court really views religious freedom as not only a fundamental right, but essential in a pluralistic society to enable also to people with differing views to live together in peace years working on religious liberty stories and talking with people through the North County family policy Council I've discovered there's just a lot of misunderstanding about why religious liberty is so important. Why is this something that we need to to fight 40 think I'm so glad you asked actually recently published a book designed to answer precisely that question is called free to believe the battle over religious liberty in America and is designed to help ordinary Americans understand why religious freedom matters and in brief, I argue that there are three main reasons why religious freedom is so important a number one religious freedom benefit society enables religion to flourish, which produces all sorts of good works that are necessary for self-government. Number two.

Religious freedom is a profound limit on the power of government and therefore serves as a foundation for all of her other rights because the government that can violate religious freedom can violate any other right and in third and finally religious freedom is important because it's a fundamental human right rooted in who we are as human beings that were all born with a conscience that directs us when the government coerces us to go against conscience.

It's really violating who we are as human beings and therefore violating a fundamental human right. Okay, let's talk a little bit more about the US Supreme Court.

What is he thinking will happen next session. Anything we need to be watching for next term, the court has a truly blockbuster religious freedom case on its docket is another of the Becket fund cases is called Fulton versus city of Philadelphia and we represent a religious foster care ministry in several religious foster families and for over 100 years that foster care ministry in Philadelphia has been recruiting families provide loving homes for foster children.

Unfortunately, just a year or two ago the city Philadelphia decided to try to shut down that religious ministry solely because of its religious beliefs about marriage on the ministry doesn't place children in the homes of unmarried couples or of same-sex couples, and now this is not an issue of anybody being denied the ability to engage in foster care either over 20 other private foster care agencies in the city of Philadelphia that willingly serve unmarried and same-sex couples, and no same-sex couple had ever even come to this ministry seeking help and if they did they would simply be referred to another agency. So this is not about access the foster care.

It's about the city of Philadelphia thing we don't like this.

Religious ministries beliefs about marriage and so were going to shut them down, and that case is now landed of the Supreme Court and the key question is can the government shutdown a religious ministry. Just because it doesn't like it's beliefs about marriage and that case will be argued in the fall and decided either in late 2020 early 2021. The metal have huge implications for religious groups across the country. So what can we as citizens do to try to protect this fundamental liberty of religious freedom.

Number one I would say Stephen should get informed and that's part of what I wrote free to believe so that all Americans can understand why religious freedom matters precisely how threatened and what we can do about it. And once we get informed is important to take action and if you are the leader of a religious organization were a pastor or a person in the pew there practical steps you can take both to reduce the risk that your organization may face lawsuits and increase the likelihood that religious freedom will be protected for years to come. So we need to get informed. We need to take prudent action and if you consider yourself a Christian, I think it's important to realize where our ultimate hope lies because our ultimate hope for Christians is not in favorable election results were good Supreme Court justices are winning cases. Our hope is in the person of Jesus Christ and we can rest in that confidence and approach.

All of these conflicts, not from a posture of fear from a posture of hope and joy in the goodness of God will sink you for that school would just about out of time for this week before we go to Luke Goodrich quicken our listeners go to learn more about these religious liberty cases and of course your book free to believe you can find out all about use cases and get up-to-the-minute updates at the Becket fund for religious Liberty's website, which is Becket Law.Ward. You can also find my book free to believe the battle of religious liberty in America anywhere.

Books are sold. Amazon.com were at my own website, Luke Goodrich.com will Luke Goodrich, senior counsel with the Becket fund for religious liberty. Thank you so much for your work and for joining us on family policy matters even listening to family policy matters. We hope you enjoyed the program and plenitude in again next week to listen to the show online and to learn more about NC families were to inform, encourage and inspire families across from Alana good or website it NC family.Ward that's NC family.org. Thanks again for listening and may God bless you and your family