Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Religious Exemptions?
This looks to be of interest: Martha Minow (Harvard Law), Should Religious Groups Be Exempt from Civil Rights Laws?
Here's the abstract:
Should a private religious university lose its tax
exempt status if it bans interracial dating? Should a religious school be able
fire a pregnant married teacher because her continued work would violate the
church's view that mothers of young children should not work outside the home?
Should a religious social service agency, such as Catholic Charities, be exempt
from a state regulation banning discrimination in the delivery of social
services on the basis of sexual orientation? Should religious organizations be
exempt from civil rights laws? This article argues that these questions raised
difficult normative issues that have been answered practically by reference to
the varying effects of historical social movements, producing the differential
treatment of race, gender, and sexual orientation laws. The article explores
avenues for negotiating solutions other than full exemptions or no exemptions.
Besides the instrumental goal of solving - or avoiding - complex political and
legal problems, this question of stance injects the dimensions of virtue ethics
and value-added negotiation. In so doing the article proposes ways to pursue
productive stances toward clashes over religious exemption claims is highly
relevant to sustaining and replenishing both American pluralism and
constitutional protections for minority groups.
And the link.
https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2007/09/religious-exemp.html