Posted on 10/12/2011 11:27:49 AM PDT by Dr. White
In yet another stunning attack on freedom of religion, President Barack Obama's Justice Department asked the Supreme Court last week to give the federal government the power to tell a church who its ministers will be.
The case involves a former teacher at Lutheran school, who along with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is pushing a claim that a Lutheran congregation should be forced to restore her ministry position.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State and American Atheists, Inc. have filed briefs siding with the Obama administration against the church.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, and the American Center for Law and Justice are among those who have filed briefs supporting the Lutherans.
In 1999, the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School in Redford, Mich., hired Cheryl Perich to be a lay teacher on a one-year contract in its kindergarten.
The next year, Perich became a "called" teacher at the school after she became a commissioned minister in the church.
"To receive a call, a candidate must be selected by a local church congregation," said a brief the church submitted to the Supreme Court that was prepared by lawyers at the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty and Douglas Laycock of the University of Virginia Law School.
"At Hosanna-Tabor, the school board typically presents a choice of candidates to the congregation, and after prayerfully considering the candidates, the congregation extends a call via congregational vote," the brief said. "Once the call has been accepted, the candidate is installed in office via the public rite of 'commissioning,' and is recognized as a 'Minister of Religion, Commissioned' -- also known as a 'commissioned minister.'"
As a minister in the school, Perich taught religious classes, led students in prayer and performed other religious tasks. She was also expected to integrate the teaching of the Lutheran faith into all so-called "secular" classes, including math, science, social studies and art.
In 2004, Perich was diagnosed with narcolepsy and was unable to teach the fall semester. In January 2005, when she could not return, the school hired another teacher to take her place during the spring.
Later that month, according to a brief filed by the Justice Department's Office of the Solicitor General, Perich informed the school's principal, Stacey Hoeft, via email that she would be able to return to work the following month.
The principal informed her they had already hired a replacement teacher for the rest of the year.
The congregation then voted to ask Perich for a "peaceful release from her call."
"'Peaceful release' is a religious act by which a congregation and a called minister agree to release one another from the mutual obligations of the call," says the brief submitted by the church. "Peaceful releases are common, and they leave the called minister in good standing and eligible for a new call."
Perich declined to be peacefully released. In late February, she showed up at the school and met with Principal Hoeft.
"Later that day, Perich told Hoeft that if she were not reinstated, she would sue the church," said the church's brief. "Hoeft immediately asked Perich if that were what she really meant, because a lawsuit would clearly violate the church's conflict resolution policy applicable to called employees. Perich repeated the threat."
The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod explained this teaching in its own brief: "St. Paul teaches in his first letter to the Corinthians that Christians should generally resolve their disputes internally without going to the secular courts for relief." For this reason, the church has developed procedures for settling internal disputes.
A few weeks after the meeting between Perich and Hoeft, the Hosanna-Tabor congregation voted to "rescind Perich's call" because she had threatened to sue the church contrary to the church's teaching.
"The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a complaint against the church under the Americans With Disabilities Act, alleging a single count of retaliation," says the church's brief. "Perich intervened, alleging the same retaliation claim and adding a retaliation claim under state law. Neither complaint alleges disability discrimination. Both complaints request an order reinstating Perich to her former position as a commissioned minister, together with back pay, compensatory damages, punitive damages, and injunctive relief ordering new 'policies, practices, and programs' at the church."
The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod told the court in its brief that its views on the ministry and the settlement of disputes may not be "widely shared" or "widely understood." "But," the church said, "they have been the views of orthodox Lutherans for centuries."
Acting Deputy Solicitor General Leondra Kruger told the court, during oral arguments, that the federal government should be able to trump the church on these decisions.
"Their submission is that the hiring and firing decisions with respect to parochial school teachers and with respect to priests is categorically off limits," said Kruger. "And we think that that is a rule that is insufficiently attentive to the relative public and private interests at stake, interests that this court has repeatedly recognized are important in determining freedom of association claims."
Kruger contended this did not mean the government could order the Catholic Church to ordain female priests. But, even then, according to her argument, it would be a matter of the government weighing "the relative public and private interests at stake."
What is at stake is the First Amendment and the religious freedom of all Americans.
Acting Deputy Solicitor General Leondra Kruger told the court, during oral arguments, that the federal government should be able to trump the church on these decisions.
What is at stake is the First Amendment and the religious freedom of all Americans.
If the Obamanation gets another term, they will make at least a couple of Supreme Court appointments. If that happens, we will have passed the point of no return.
Hey, any “separation of church and state liberals” want to chime in?
*Crickets*
German Churches and the Nazi State
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005206
Worshipping Almighty God is considered noxious to Iman hussein Soetero, son of Perdition!
I’m and old geezer here, so maybe I’m just a little too far over the hill to get this, but is there something contrary about Americans United calling for separation of church and state and then saying the state should decide who shall be the ministers in the church? Somebody help me please.
The 'religious element' is inherent in the nature of the case when the defendant is a church. Not a cult, but a centuries-old, relatively 'liberal' Protestant church, at that. Cheryl Perich, the plaintiff, argues that the church violated various civil right-based laws and rules by replacing her after she had been effectively ordained ('called', in Lutheran church parlance) to be a minister. Unfortunately, due to Perich's apparently temporary inability to perform her teaching duties (narcolepsy) she was replaced as a teacher and, later, no longer afflicted with narcolepsy she was not able to regain her position (which had already been filled) so, she sued.
When she sued the church (her former employer) she violated church orthodoxy and was, in effect, relieved of her ministerial status as well as her job. Churches should be able to maintain this authority to select or dismiss those they employ on the basis of their adherence (or refusal to adhere) to the church's traditional code of conduct. In this case, as in many Protestant churches, filing a lawsuit against the church in the secular courts was grounds for the woman's dismissal from her ministerial position. I maintain that if a mainline, Protestant church cannot choose it's teachers and ministers without government intervention, religious freedom is lost.
I understand what those words mean, but that makes no sense.
RE: DOJ: Feds Can Tell Church Who Its Ministers Will Be
China decides who the official Bishop of the Chinese Catholic church will be or who the Dalai Lama should be.
You can’t have a church unless you are recognize by their Three Self Movement.
China also has a thriving undergound Christian Church.
Maybe we’re going to be like China soon...
Just stay put, it's coming here!
He is too stupid to be the “son of Pedition”. The horned one would never in a billion years waste his time on Barry...who likes ice cream, plays golf, and uses terms like “I won” and “wee weed up”.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, and the American Center for Law and Justice are among those who have filed briefs supporting the Lutherans.
Now, I've got to wonder if the Catholic, Mormon and Jew haters who frequent so many of these forms will pass up this opportunity to side with the Atheists against their real enemies.
Yeah, but at least their leader isn’t a ***got.
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod being told who to hire??
Hate to say it, but I feel O’Bummer is correct on this one. Nullification is not a part of the remedy available to Lutheran Pastors in order to remove their ordination. They have due process procedures in their own rules that must be followed.
If they follow their procedures, then they can do it. But, the process is not retroactive unless the ordination was done through fraudulent representation.
It has basically come full circle for the LCMS(lutheran church missouri synod). The german immigrants who came to America that established this denomination came here because the German state was telling them how they needed to worship. Now the US Government is doing the same to them again. Where do I go now?
The Missouri Synod Lutherans I know are among the most conservative people I know. It's the ELCA's that are liberals. Not that it matters in this case.
More government overreach despite the First Amendment. Freedom of religion?
Sadly, this kind of overreach is typical. We’ve had an advancing wave of this kind of tyranny under most governments we’ve had lately, but it’s greatly advanced under this one.
That’s very nice, but these “ministers” are not ordained clergy; they’re merely elementary school teachers. To be a teacher in an LCMS school, one must receive requisite theological training and be “called” by the congregation supporting the school. The ministry of an LCMS teacher is limited to his or her duties as a teacher, much as, say, the duties of an extraordinary minister in the Catholic Church is limited to assisting in distribution of the communion host.
“A “separation of church and state” group wants the government running churches?”
The Left has always been about “how to fool them today,” including outright lies to hide what they are really up to. They don’t really care about “separation of church and state”, they care about indoctrination BY the state, schools and any other means possible.
Anyone who doesn’t know that that phrase is not constitutional can look to the deliberate agenda of Americans not even knowing their own heritage.
Or taking the trouble to homeschool their own children.
Use it or lose it. That is what Americans have been doing for a long time, not USING it.
Freedom!
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