Re: Trinity Lutheran and the ERISA cases - Do Churches Want Special Treatment or Not?

What I find most surprising is that the demise of the argument that government funding will undermine religious freedom is occurring at a time when the argument may well turn out to be accurate at least in some locations. It may be that for many people on the left the failure of the church

RE: Trinity Lutheran and the ERISA cases - Do Churches Want Special Treatment or Not?

That’s all true, but the deal used to be no funding and lots of church autonomy in return., including the right to hire and fire for religious reasons. The same folks who complain about government funding are quite willing to allow government regulation of religious organizations with our

Re: Trinity Lutheran and the ERISA cases - Do Churches Want Special Treatment or Not?

Not all of the same folk who complain about government funding. There are still some of us left who support the old model of significant limitations on government funding of religious institutions and significant protection of religious institutions from government regulation and

RE: Trinity Lutheran and the ERISA cases - Do Churches Want Special Treatment or Not?

Marty makes some good points here. It leads me back to a recurring thought I’ve had about Trinity Lutheran and Dignity Health. They don’t have much in common. But in both cases, the rationale for distinctive treatment rests on an old separationist rationale that few people believe anymore or

Re: Trinity Lutheran and the ERISA cases - Do Churches Want Special Treatment or Not?

When I worked for DOJ in the late 80's and litigated a major Chapter (now I think Title) 2 funding case in San Francisco, the main plaintiff's lawyer was a devout 7th Day Adventist who strongly feared government grants to religious schools would ultimately dissipate religious freedom. Many

Re: Trinity Lutheran and the ERISA cases - Do Churches Want Special Treatment or Not?

I'm confused about how the "deal" has changed. The Title VII exemption allowing religious preferences by religious organizations has remained the same since its expansion in 1972, and the key cases rejecting its application to other types of discrimination were decided in the 1980s -- the same

Re: Trinity Lutheran and the ERISA cases - Do Churches Want Special Treatment or Not?

P.S. I'd wager that most of the "left" also supports *O Centro*--indeed, many might even argue for a *constitutionally* compelled exemption for congregational ceremonial rituals of that kind. This is all speculative, of course. On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 7:27 PM, Marty Lederman <

RE: Trinity Lutheran and the ERISA cases - Do Churches Want Special Treatment or Not?

No. But disagreements over matters related to sexual morality more broadly -- gay rights, abortion, contraception, sex outside marriage, in vitro fertilization, etc. -- explains much of the hostility to exemptions and the breakup of the coalition that passed RFRA. On funding, there are many

Re: Re-upping: Sterling: A helpful test case on RFRA burdens

Here's the government's brief in opposition . It stresses that RFRA's substantial burden test requires the claimant at a minimum to provide evidence of an honest belief that the practice in question--rather than available

Re: Trinity Lutheran and the ERISA cases - Do Churches Want Special Treatment or Not?

There have been fights over parochial school teachers " living in sin, " announcing support for abortion, having an abortion; schools wishing to hire only believers for secular positions. Lately, there are challenges to abortion conscience clauses. LGBT rights certainly figure prominently, but

Re: Trinity Lutheran and the ERISA cases - Do Churches Want Special Treatment or Not?

So is it correct to conclude that the struggle over LGBT rights explains 100% of any change in public attitudes -- left and right-- about funding and regulation of houses of worship? If not, what else explains the change? The end of the fight between Protestants and Catholics about public funding

RE: Trinity Lutheran and the ERISA cases - Do Churches Want Special Treatment or Not?

I think people are aware that funding may bring more regulation. Judges tend to defer to government conditions attached to money, even though some of those conditions raise serious questions of unconstitutional conditions. The fear has lost much of its force in part because of Smith and the

Re: Re-upping: Sterling: A helpful test case on RFRA burdens

I would like to know whether her superior allowed or would have allowed other secular messages to be posted, like "Be a positive thinker!" or even "My daughter is the best!" Perhaps the burden should be on the military to show that other messages would have been treated the same. We are told