A committee of the Southern Baptist Convention has published a pamphlet teaching members how to subvert civil laws against discrimination. The main idea is to pretend all church employees are ministers so they can use the ministerial exemption.
Friendly Atheist has the info on the pamphlet:
In the national debate over religious freedom and Religious Freedom Restoration Acts passed in some states, it’s important to define our terms. Religious freedom means one thing to religious conservatives and another thing for progressives who support church and state separation. I don’t know if it’s good to know the debate has been going on since the founding of this country.
Sheila Suess Kennedy at the Indianapolis Business Journal had a post about the history of religious freedom:
A Christian ministry that wanted to open a school in an office complex they owned, had their appeal heard in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit last week. They are suing the city of Upper Arlington, Ohio, under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act – which is a cousin to the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The RLUIPA is used by religious groups to force cities to change zoning laws that conflict with the group’s religious agenda.
Last year, about this time, I posted about a Christian ministry, Tree of Life, who purchased the largest office complex in Upper Arlington. They wanted to run a private school on the site and the city denied their zoning change request several times. Tree of Life sued in federal court.
One of the conservative talking points in opposition to same-sex marriage is that the courts shouldn’t redefine marriage. They claim it has always been between a man and a woman. The problem is marriage has been redefined before, several times. A recent redefinition even contradicts some religious conservative beliefs.
We are on the cusp of probably seeing same-sex marriage bans joining school mandated prayer in the dust bin of history. The road from DC is looking like an end to religious privilege. The war has instead moved to the state houses around the country where the right-wing is doing all it can to deny basic human dignity and worth by forcing Christianity on the residents of their states.
In a Salon article, Evan McMurry, from AlterNet, detailed at least four areas the right-wing religious conservatives are flexing what muscles they have left:
It was reported today (March 9th), that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled that due to speech content restrictions the Missouri House of Worship Protection Act (2012) was unconstiutional.
