The NYT on religion and accommodation

The New York Times is running a four-part series "examin[ing] how American religious organizations benefit from an increasingly accommodating government."  Sunday's installment, "As Exemptions Grow, Religion Outweighs Regulation," is here; today's is called, "Where Faith Abides, Employees Have Few Rights."  A quick, general observation:  It strikes me that, in these first two pieces, there is inadequate attention paid to the distinction between accommodations and exemptions that are thought to be, or that could plausibly be said to be, required by the relevant constitutional text, structure, and history, on the one hand, and -- on the other -- those exemptions that are the permissible, but not required, result of legislative decisions to accommodate.

Today's story talks in some detail about the "ministerial exception":

The most sweeping of these judicial protections, and the one that confronted the novice nun in Toledo, is called the ministerial exception. Judges have been applying this exception, sometimes called the church autonomy doctrine, to religious employment disputes for more than 100 years.

As a rule, state and federal judges will handle any lawsuit that is filed in the right place in an appropriate, timely manner. But judges will almost never agree to hear a controversy that would require them to delve into the doctrines, governance, discipline or hiring preferences of any religious faith. Citing the protections of the First Amendment, they have ruled with great consistency that congregations cannot fully express their faith and exercise their religious freedom unless they are free to select their own spiritual leaders without any interference from government agencies or second-guessing by the courts.

To do otherwise would be an intolerable government intrusion into employment relationships that courts have called “the lifeblood” of religious life and the bedrock of religious liberty, explained Edward R. McNicholas, co-chairman of the national religious institutions practice in the Washington, D.C., office of Sidley Austin, a law firm with some of the country’s largest religious organizations among its clients.

The piece then goes on to profile a number of cases, including the recent Petruska decision, which has been discussed on this blog before.

I'll have more to say, I think, when the series is through.  The first two installments, though, leave me with a sense of "they just don't get it" unease.  The storyline owes too much, so far, to the "religion is getting special treatment and is treating people unfairly" narrative, and not enough to the "religious organizations are not the state, and -- if we take religious liberty and limited government seriously -- must have the freedom to organize themselves, select ministers, etc., without being second-guessed by government" account.  We'll see.