Freedom of religion is a principle that supports an
individual’s freedom to practice, worship, and observe a religion’s
tenets or deity, or deities, without interference; the concept also
includes the freedom to change religion at will or not to follow any
religion. That concept of religious freedom was what the Founding
Fathers and Constitution’s Framers believed was reasonable and
universally excepted when they concocted the First Amendment. Although
it, relatively speaking, served to protect Americans’ freedom to
worship, or not, for almost two-hundred years, it never really caught on
with a control-oriented segment of the population under the spell of,
and led by, the United States coven of catholic bishops. Now,
religious freedom means that a small percentage of the population can
impose, and enforce by Supreme Court fiat, compliance to their religious delusions.
According to their distorted reading
of what religious freedom means, a catholic school in Indiana and the
Fort-Wayne-South Bend Diocese said religious freedom protects the school
and cult from having to go to court at all. Even a federal court over
the cult school violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act banning employers from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
The cult and school discriminated on the basis of
gender (sex) and religion when it summarily fired an English teacher for
going through fertility treatment (in vitro fertilization or IVF).
When “the cult” officials were informed the teacher, Emily Herx, was
undergoing IVF treatments, they ruled that she was “a grave, immoral
sinner” and fired
her (for wanting to give birth, no less). She rightly filed a
discrimination lawsuit in 2012 and the school and diocese argued that
freedom of religion gives them the constitutional right to fire whomever
they choose and violate federal discrimination laws at their religious
pleasure; particularly because it was a woman they deemed a gravely
immoral sinner according to a vatican document.
In September, a federal judge ruled
that there was enough evidence for a jury trial, but the catholic
diocese said no. According to another twist on religious freedom, the cult said that just going to trial over the question of discrimination
violated its freedom of religion. The cult's attorneys argued that “If the
diocese is required to go through a trial, it would irrevocably deny
Fort Wayne-South Bend diocese the benefits of its religious freedom.”
The cult is appealing
to a higher power, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, to verify their
newest iteration of religious freedom is religious enough to
discriminate with impunity and immune from answering to, or even
appearing before, the American judicial system.
There is a “special discrimination exemption” in
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act in that allows religious institutions
to favor members of their own faith in hiring. However, there is no
special religious exemption for sex discrimination which is how the
terminated teacher is framing her dismissal. She proved her point
quickly by showing that the diocese had never fired a male teacher for
using any type of fertility treatment. The church admitted that indeed,
it had never fired a male teacher undergoing fertility treatments in the
past, but it probably “would” because it is against church teachings;
they just “hadn’t gotten around to it in the past.”
A staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties
Union, Brian Hauss, that is not involved in the lawsuit but filed amicus
briefs in support of the teacher was flabbergasted and said, “I’ve
never seen this before, and I couldn’t find any other cases like it.
What the diocese is saying is, ‘We can fire anybody, and we have
absolute immunity from even going to trial, as long as we think they’re
violating our religion. And to have civil authorities even look into
what we’re doing is a violation.’…It’s astonishing.” No, it is 21st
Century America when the papal-contingent on the Supreme Court
eviscerated the establishment clause and imposed the USCCB ideology of
religious freedom on the nation.
Another legal expert, Louise Melling, was very
critical of the cult argument and said, “It’s an unusual and extreme
argument, to be saying the court doesn’t even have the legal authority
to ask whether this was, in fact, sex discrimination. I can’t imagine
they would prevail on that. It’s too extreme.” However, Melling also
said she could never have imagined the explosion of cases where
cults, religious cabals, and increasingly businesses have an
expansive right to discriminate borne of the UCSSB concept of “religious
freedom.”
Of course, it was the High Court’s Hobby Lobby
ruling that really empowered “the faithful and the clergy” to use
“their” religious freedom to impose “their” belief system on anyone in
their realm of influence. In fact, the ACLU has noticed a sharp rise in
the number of christian schools claiming
that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act empowers them to discriminate
against, and fire women undergoing IVF to become pregnant, or terminate
employees engaging in same-sex relationships. Now, besides using the
“invisible religious freedom clause” in the anti-discrimination law to
discriminate on the basis of religion, gender, and sexual preference,
that same religious freedom includes supremacy over the American
judicial system.
Whether Americans are aware or not, this latest ploy
is the ultimate expression of “above the law” and a “law unto
themselves.” Under this bizarre interpretation of religious freedom,
there are no limits, accountability, or responsibility for the cult,
any (christian) cult that is, to make, execute, and define any law that they
deem either moral or immoral; and no court in the land can interfere.
All because in June of 2014, the papal-five on the nation’s highest
court ruled that the 1980s concept of “religious freedom” proffered by
the United States coven of catholic bishops abolished the
Establishment and Free Exercise Clause. The most frightening aspect of
this latest Hobby Lobby consequence is that now that the cult garnered
supremacy over the Constitution and the judicial system, the real 21st
Century Crusade and Inquisition will begin in earnest.
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