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Lori Windham (R), senior counsel for The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, joins supporters in front of the Supreme Court after the decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores June 30, 2014 in Washington, DC. The First Amendment to the Constitution forbids the government to take actions “prohibiting the free exercise [of religion.]” The Free Exercise Clause should protect individuals. Society should not impose its beliefs on anyone. Government actions cannot stand in the way of a person’s religious practices. By the same token, an individual cannot impose his religion on others to deprive them of legal protection.
Sadly, the pendulum in the courts has swung from ignoring the rights of religious minorities to allowing groups to evade laws they do not like. A case a few weeks ago out of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which covers New York, Connecticut and Vermont, has taken the latest step in that direction Taylor v. New York Methodist Hospital .
Back in the day, Justice Antonin Scalia, who claimed his conservative politics had no bearing on his rulings, wrote the majority opinion in Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith holding that the Free Exercise Clause did not exempt from a regulation denying unemployment benefits to drug users a man whose religion required him to smoke peyote. The Constitution prevents only specifically discriminatory regulations, Scalia said. I think the Smith case undercut the Free Exercise Clause, A regulation which has the effect of penalizing religious practice “prohibits” free exercise as much as a law specifically targeting religion. Accommodating Smith would not have compelled others to embrace peyote.
These days, the Free Exercise clause undercuts protections we should all enjoy under the law. Taylor concerned a claim of racial discrimination against the hospital. An employee in the Pastoral Care Department alleged that Methodist Hospital failed to promote — and ultimately fired — him in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 .
The hospital successfully argued that the courts had no jurisdiction over the matter. Methodist claimed that, as a religious institution, it had the unlimited right to […]