Photo by Phil Roeder
The United States Supreme Court will not be hearing Sylvia Spencer et al v. World Vision, the controversial case of three World Vision employees who were fired for not believing in Jesus as God or the Trinity as required by World Vision’s company policies. World Vision won the appeal in 2010 in front of the Ninth Circuit, and that decision stands.
In the World Vision case, all sides agreed that the nature of the firings were religious, but the fired employees argued that World Vision was not truly religious since its work was humanitarian rather than religious, and not significantly different from groups like the Red Cross.
So what about jobs that do not involve religious work at all, such as a shipping worker or a web developer? The Court says [PDF],
The nature of the Employees’ duties is irrelevant to our analysis. If World Vision qualifies for the exemption, it is entitled to terminate employees for exclusively religious reasons, without respect to the nature of their duties.
What does this mean for people like me who are closet atheists in other Christian companies? It means I need to find a new job or risk being fired. I already knew this, but I think it’s getting to the point where I can’t put it off much longer. Despite the poor economy, I’ve got to get out of here.
According to the decision, firing someone based on religious beliefs is not limited to places of worship or schools. As cited in the court’s decision (pages 7-8), here are nine factors considered in determining whether an entity qualifies for religious exemption.
- whether the entity operates for a profit,
- whether it produces a secular product,
- whether the entity’s articles of incorporation or other pertinent documents state a religious purpose,
- whether it is owned, affiliated with or financially supported by a formally religious entity such as a church or synagogue,
- whether a formally religious entity participates in the management, for instance by having representatives on the board of
trustees, - whether the entity holds itself out to the public as secular or sectarian,
- whether the entity regularly includes prayer or other forms of worship in its activities,
- whether it includes religious instruction in its curriculum, to the extent it is an educational institution, and
- whether its membership is made up by coreligionists.
You can read the Ninth Circuit’s Sylvia Spencer et al v. World Vision decision here [PDF].
Happy news! New York state passed a bill making gay marriage legal! And in the middle of all the twitter hubub and joyous shouts of happiness, I read this:
Best twitter status of my night! Congratulations to a twitter friend and one of my favorite youtubers, Mitch (ProfMTH)! This should never have been illegal. I am so glad for all the New Yorkers who can now enjoy the proper freedom they so rightly deserve.After 15 & 1/2 years, I asked my partner to marry me & he said yes. Thank you all for your support! Victory for equality is victory for all.
-@ProfMTH (Mitch), 25-6-2011 02:35:56
Remember the large statue of Jesus that was destroyed by fire?
It’s being replaced–this time of a 51-foot walking Jesus with his arms stretched out in a welcoming gesture.It will be called “Come Unto Me.” Welcoming or not, I want to name this thing Zombie Jesus. He wants your brains and he’s coming for you!
An artist's rendering, released in Nov. 2010, of the new Jesus statue that will be built at Solid Rock Church in Monroe to replace the one destroyed by fire in June last year. (Cincinnati.com)
This time around, non-flammable materials will be used in construction and a lightning suppression system will be built in to prevent a repeat of the June 2010 blaze that reduced the first structure – a waist up replica of Jesus with arms raised high – to pieces of charred steel.
Good idea.
Photo by radarxlove / Chelsea
I feel so sorry for the women of South Dakota who dare fall pregnant against their wishes. Personal reproductive choice is being limited even more than ever all over the country as illustrated by the new bill signed into law by SD Governor Dennis Daugaard. This new law requires a three-day waiting period before a woman is allowed to have her abortion–the longest wait anywhere in the nation. Women are also forced to attend anti-abortion counseling sessions at pregnancy help centers.
Since many of these centers are specifically Christian institutions, the balance of this “counseling” is easily called into question. The point of these centers is to convince women that their choice is wrong and that they are broken, fallen people who need to carry their babies full-term. I used to volunteer at a pregnancy counseling center as a teenager, and our training centered around convincing girls and women of three things: God loved them, abortion is murder, and sex before marriage is wrong. At my center, we were taught to show you care for the women by praying with and evangelize them. You want them to trust you and believe what you say so that you can save the life of the unborn children. Your entire mission is to save the baby and the woman’s soul.
This piece explains how I feel about the new SD law:
That the anti-choice movement is mostly a Christianist movement bent on imposing its religious beliefs on the public at large is one of the most under-discussed aspects of the abortion debate. This law should highlight the theocratic underpinnings of the anti-choice movement. Most and probably all crisis pregnancy centers are religious organizations that object to abortion because it conflicts with their religious dogma about female sexuality, women’s roles, and their belief about when the soul enters the body. Requiring women to sit through a lecture on Christian ethics about sexuality before getting an abortion should be a clear-cut case of a violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment, even if the crisis pregnancy centers are careful to avoid saying the word “Jesus” too much.
Republican state senator Al Novstrup claimed the bill is somehow protective of women, offering them a “second opinion,” which indicates not just his disrespect for religious freedom but his profound ignorance of options counseling typical to abortion clinics, especially Planned Parenthood, which runs the sole abortion clinic in the state. I don’t imagine he’d see it that way if the state required citizens to hear a “second opinion” about other private decisions based on personal religious beliefs (or lack thereof). Would Novstrup enjoy having to listen to a lecture from an atheist or Muslim group before joining a church, getting married or making plans for his own funeral? Why then is it appropriate to force women to listen to religious lectures before making a decision that involves their own religious beliefs about life?
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