Category: Law

Religion Today is reporting:

Union Told Me to Pay Dues or Change Religion, Teacher Says

Told by a union official to pay forced dues or "change religions," a teacher in southern Ohio is challenging a state law that allows only those public employees who belong to certain denominations the right to claim religious objection to paying union dues. CNSNews.com reports that Carol Katter, a mathematics and language arts instructor in the St. Marys district, filed a federal complaint in the U.S. District Court in Columbus this week over an Ohio law that prevents the lifelong Catholic from diverting her dues from a union she refuses to fund because it supports abortion on demand. The current law states: "Any public employee who is a member of and adheres to established and traditional tenets or teachings of a bona fide religion or religious body which has historically held conscientious objections to joining or financially supporting an employee organization and which is exempt from taxation under the provisions of the Internal Revenue Code shall not be required to join or financially support any employee organization as a condition of employment." The teacher said she had been "shocked" to learn her dues had to go to the OEA [Ohio Education Association, an affiliate of the National Education Association]. However, she later learned that members of only two religions (Seventh-Day Adventist or a Mennonite) receive the charity exception.

CHT to the reader who e-mailed!

MORE HERE.

EXCERPTS:

While discussing the situation with an OEA official, Katter "pretty much pleaded with the lady," saying: "I can’t do this. It’s against my belief and my conscience. Isn’t there anything I can do to just give the money to charity?"

The teacher’s request was turned down "basically because I could not come up with proof that my individual church — not the Catholic faith, but my individual church — had a record of anyone having successfully fought a union," she said. "In my little parish church, no one’s ever done this, and that’s what threw it out."

Katter said the union attorney told her she had two choices – pay her dues or "change religions."

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, union officials may not force any employee to financially support a union if doing so violates the employee’s sincerely held religious beliefs, Gleason said.

To avoid conflict between an employee’s faith and a requirement to pay fees to a union he or she believes to be immoral, the law requires union officials to accommodate the employee – most often by designating a mutually acceptable charity to accept the funds.

[VP of the National Right to Work Foundation Stefan] Gleason added that SERB officials cannot claim ignorance in Katter’s situation. He noted that the state government was involved in a case last year that led a federal judge to issue a decree affirming that all public-sector employees with religious objections to union affiliation could not be forced to pay dues to such organizations.

The ruling was made in a foundation-assisted lawsuit regarding union contracts for state workers. Ohio Environmental Protection Agency employee Glen Greenwood, a Presbyterian, had objected to paying union dues because he believed the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association supported abortion and same-sex marriage.

"I’m hoping that this case will set a precedent so anybody from any religion who has these feelings will not be pressured into compromising their convictions," [Katter] said. "I can’t not do this."

A few thoughts on this story:

First, I’m not a fan of compulsory union membership. I support the right of laborers to organize, but I also support the right of laborers to not organize. Forcing labor to organize distorts the economics of the labor market just as much as prohibiting them from organizing. In principle, they’re the same. When business owners wish to use the law to prohibit their workers from organizing, it’s an attempt by business owners to eliminatekeep individual workers from banding together and exercizing their clout in aggregate. When labor unions wish to use the law to prohibit workers from not joinging the union, it’s an attempt to prevent individual laborers from competing with the union. In both cases, one party (business owners in one case and labor unions in the other) is trying to use the law to eliminate competition for their interests in the labor market.

To see the selfishness of this more clearly, turn the situation around so that it deals with business/consumer relations instead of management/labor relations: Suppose that a business wanted to use the law to prevent customers from organizing a boycott–preventing customers from organizing and using their purchasing power as clout in getting the goods and services it wants. That’s the equivalent of business owners preventing unions from existing. Similarly, suppose that a business wants to use the law to prevent other, competing businesses from springing up; in other words, it wants a monopoly on who will be allowed to provide a particular good or service. That’s the equivalent of labor unions being able to legally mandate membership, so that if you want to provide a particular service (labor), you have to do it only through the monopoly of the union.

In each of these cases, it’s one group trying to use the law to protect its power/money from free competition in the marketplace.

Second, I hope Katter is successful in her action. The idea that you have to be a member of an individual local church that has a history of conscientious objection to union membership is nutty, and I expect that to fall by the wayside.

I’d also like to see her succeed in her quest to strike a blow for religious freedom in general. If she’s not able to get a right-to-work law in her area (which would be preferred), then at least people of all religions should be able to exercise the option of donating their union dues to charity if they can document that their religion would support consientious objection in this case.

Third, I do not think it would be difficult for Katter to establish this in the case of her own Catholic faith. Not only are there existing conscientious objector passages connected with abortion in official Church documents, but I suspect that the Vatican would be quite willing to issue a finding supporting conscientious objection in this case.

A while back they did issue a finding supporting the rights of parents to have their children exempted from mandatory innoculations drawn from immorally-cultivated stem cell lines, and if the request were put to them in the right way, I suspect that they would be most willing to issue a document supporting the right of people to conscientious object when they are being required by law to pay money to unions that promote or support abortion.

Fourth, I’m a little nonplussed about the claim (mentioned in the second link, above) that the Ohio law creates an establishment of religion and thus violates the First Amendment. While I recognize that it creates a more favorable environment to some religions than others, that’s just not what "establishment" means. Ohio hasn’t set up an Official Church of Ohio (which it would have been entitled to do under the Constitution as originally written and interpreted).

Still, we’re dealing with a clear injustice here, and I suspect that Katter will succeed.

I’ve pointed out before how much I really like Justice Clarence Thomas. I appreciate his willingness to apply originalism in a more thoroughgoing manner even more than Justice Scalia does (Scalia, while still very, very good, shows too much deference to precedence, and as someone once said, "Stare decisis is fo suckas").

I was very interested yesterday to read

THIS STORY ABOUT JUSTICE THOMAS’S ROLE ON THE COURT.

It turns out that Harry Blackmun, author of The Evil Decision, kept detailed notes on how the justices voted in private before their final decisions were announced. Now that Darth Blackmun has gone to his eternal reward, those notes are available for study, and they reveal that Justice Thomas has had much more of an impact on the court than many had been aware of.

Fascinating reading.

GET THE STORY.

Following the sex abuse scandal here in the U.S., there has been an attempt by civil lawyers prosecuting sex abuse cases to try to name the Vatican as a defendant in these cases, which would mean that it could be slapped with millions and millions of dollars in special, general, and punitive damages.

There are a number of legal barriers that have thus far prevented this from happening to the Holy See, but recently a judge in Oregon expressed openness to naming the Vatican as a defendant.

Other legal barriers could still prevent that from happening, though the fact that Oregon is located in the ever-crazy 9th Circuit could help facilitate the matter.

My guess is that one or another factor will intervene to prevent the Holy See from being soaked in this case, but only time will tell.

In the meanwhile,

JOHN ALLEN HAS A GOOD GUIDE TO THE INS-AND-OUTS OF THE SITUATION.

I was really interested to read THIS ARTICLE BY THOMAS SOWELL ABOUT JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS.

Sowell is my favorite economist, and Thomas is my favorite justice. I mean, he totally ROCKS! He’s even better than Scalia. It’s too bad cloning is immoral (and takes too long, and doesn’t transfer memories), because I’d love to have a court packed with nine of him.

Here’s a neat piece in Sowell’s article that hits the nail on the head regarding how judicial activism amounts to the creation of ex post facto laws:

In one of his dissenting opinions, Justice Thomas declared that the Supreme Court was making "policy-laden judgments that we are ill equipped and arguably unauthorized to make" — and that this represented "functioning more as legislators than as judges."

He added: "The outcome of constitutional cases ought to rest on firmer ground than the personal preferences of judges."

That firmer ground is the original meaning of a law when it was passed. If that meaning needs to be changed, then it is up to elected officials to change it, not judges. That is what the democratic process is for.

When legislators change a law, that change is announced, so that everyone knows what is and is not illegal from now on. But when judges change the law by reinterpreting it, based on the "evolving standards" of a "living constitution," nobody knows that they have violated the law until after the fact, when it is too late.

Retrospective laws are expressly forbidden by the constitution. But the "evolving standards" of a "living constitution" amount to retrospective laws by another name.

Quite so.

Also, here’s a nice bit regarding whether Ten Commandments displays constitute an establishment of religion (which in the Constitution means creating an official state religion equivalent to the Church of England but which has been obscenely misinterpreted by the Supreme Court in recent years):

Justice Thomas has . . . refused to read the constitution’s ban on an "establishment of religion" as if it meant a "wall of separation" between church and state, requiring the obliteration of religious symbols from public property.

There is no such wall in the constitution, and an "establishment of religion" had a very plain and limited meaning when those words were written — a coerced support for a government-designated religion. Justice Thomas’ opinions often go back into history to show what the constitution’s original meaning was.

In response to someone who wanted the Ten Commandments removed from a courthouse, Justice Thomas said: "He need not stop to read it or even look at it, let alone express support for it or adopt the Commandments as guides for his life." There was "no coercion" as there was when there was an establishment of religion.

READ THE WHOLE THING.

Darth Ginsburgh recently gave a speech in South Africa that has received a great deal of comment. In it, she showed herself to be a very petty, spiteful woman who is willing to take cheap and manifestly unjust shots at those who disagree with her judicial philosophy. It really knocked her down several rungs in my book, which I was kind of surprised by considering how low she already was in my book. It turns out that my ladder of respect has more rungs on its lower end than I was previously aware of. (It gets kinda dim down there, and my eyes aren’t so good, y’know.)

As part of the speech, she defended the indefensible way in which recent SCOTUS cases have relied on foreign law, which I think constitute grounds for impeachment for her and the other justices who drew on foreign law sources to overrule the will of the American people as expressed through the laws that had been democratically established in this country.

Jeremy Rabkin has an interesting look at Ginsburgh’s defense of the indefensible, which is quite insightful.

In part he point out:

In her South Africa speech, Justice Ginsburg tried to frame such practices as looking to foreign law to "add to the store of knowledge relevant to the solution of trying questions." It is much closer to the truth to say that what the Court is doing is shifting its perspective from America to the world at large, so that positions with less support in the United States can still be viewed–in a global context–as majority or dominant positions. Rather than looking to thoughtful analysis of "trying questions," the Court, in effect, takes a poll–on an international basis.

In all three recent cases where foreign opinion was cited, the Court faced the difficulty of explaining why it was abandoning contrary constitutional rulings from as recently as the 1980s. The Court tried to say that opinion had since changed, as some states had changed their laws on such questions as whether tests of mental deficiency would be relevant to imposition of the death penalty. Not enough states had actually changed their laws, so the Court, in effect, enlarged the count to include foreign jurisdictions. Red states and blue states might be evenly balanced at home but 25 nation-states of the European Union could tip the balance, if counted.

In one of its capital punishment cases, as Justice Ginsburg noted, the Court had received amicus briefs from Nobel Prize winners such as Jimmy Carter. What has this to do with legal analysis? It is simply a way of appealing from the views of American voters to those of electors for the Nobel Prize–the sort of people who regard President Bush as a reckless cowboy and Jimmy Carter as a distinguished statesman.

He also illustrates the problem in a way that may be of special interest to JA.O readers, considering how often the topic of canon law comes up here:

To see the partisan character of appeals to foreign authorities in this setting, one need only think of a close analogy. If foreign law, why not religious law? Why not the canon law of the Catholic Church? As it happens, the U.S. Supreme Court has cited "canon law" in more than two dozen cases over the past 200 years. Most of the references are entirely incidental, but a few cases in the early 20th century actually engaged with Church sources, among others, in wrestling with the meaning of "due process." More recent cases have insisted that secular courts cannot enter into disputed questions of church law when asked to determine claims about ownership of church property or tenure in religious office.

Suppose that Catholic or conservative justices began to regularly cite canon law on the most controversial constitutional disputes–on such matters as family law or medical ethics. These justices could insist, as Justice Ginsburg does, that such "foreign opinions are not authoritative" and "set no binding precedent for the U.S. judge" but simply "add to the store of knowledge." In today’s world, the protests from liberals would be deafening, because such soothing abstractions would be seen as disingenuous. To treat canon law as any sort of "persuasive authority" would be intensely divisive. The "foreign opinion" that liberals prefer has no more inherent relevance or authority, however. We could save a lot of needless dispute by agreeing in advance that all sides will play by American rules.

One can imagine the howl that would go up from liberals if the Court took this path, and it does indeed illustrate the circumvention of the will of the American people by drawing substance from law sources that the American people have not voted for.

But this is just one of the problems that Rabkin brings out in his essay, so

GET THE STORY.

We are now set for a major First Amendment showdown.

The problem?

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits Congress from making any laws that infringe on the free exercise of religion (and the Fourteenth Amendment is interpreted as meaning that state congresses from doing the same thing).

This means that Catholics are free to pursue the obligations of their religion.

Among the obligations of their religion are to obey canon law.

Canon law requies that parish assets cannot be alienated unless a number of requirements are met (such as Rome’s approval in case that the proposed alienation amounts to more than $3 million bucks).

The U.S. Constitution thus means that Catholics are free to honor their religious obligation under canon law of not handing over more than $3 million dollars of parish assets unless Rome okays it.

NOW . . .

A federal judge has just ruled that federal bankruptcy law TRUMPS canon law and thus the First Amendment to the Constitution.

ED PETERS EXPLAINS IT ALL.

Agapé Press notes that the Arkansas chapter of the ACLU is freaking out over a student-initiated "altar call" at Jonesboro High School’s graduation ceremony last May.

For you cradle Catholics, an altar call is the point in many
evangelical church services (usually at the end) where those who have
not yet come to "know Jesus" are invited to "ask him into their heart".
They are normally encouraged to pray the "sinner’s prayer" and accept
Jesus as "Lord and Savior".

I spent alot of time in Jonesboro (or Jome-ber) during my formative years. As a high-school student in tiny Black Rock, Arkansas, Jonesboro was where we took our dates to the movies. Later, I attended Arkansas State University, which is located in Jonesboro.

Catholics don’t "do" altar calls, and as a Catholic, a surprise altar call is not something I would expect at a graduation ceremony. Given Jonesboro’s location smack in the middle of the Bible Belt, though, I would not be that surprised, either. I certainly wouldn’t be offended. The young woman giving the speech, Jessica Reed, was voicing her own views about life, having been invited to do so by virtue of her standing at the head of her class.

According to the article, the ACLU is, oddly, accusing her of violating the first amendment. Now, I’m no lawyer, but it would seem to me that it would be a violation of her first amendment rights if the school were to vet her comments or censor her speech, unless it were for obscenity. It is settled law that schools can’t censor student newspapers in the same way.

One observer notes that-

"…the ACLU is
frantically searching for a plaintiff in Jonesboro in hopes of suing
the school for an alleged unconstitutional endorsement of religion, but
has yet to find one.".

I would think that, whether or not you see eye-to-eye with Jessica Reed on the subject of Eternal Salvation, her comments would at least provide an opportunity to talk with your kid about the meaning of life. It would be what they call a "teachable moment", whether you were pro- or anti-altar call. Or does the ACLU expect everyone to accept the twisted notion that people just shouldn’t discuss such things?

I thought that one of the benefits of our advanced, industrialized society was that we would all have more time to think about and discuss such things. I thought our increased leisure was supposed to be dedicated to higher pursuits, like sharing ideas about the meaning of life. 

This Catholic supports Jessica Reed’s right to free speech.

When the subject comes up, I always tell my kids the same thing: asking Jesus into our hearts is a good thing, and it is important that we do it every day.

Being Catholics, though, we believe the invitation runs both ways. Even as we ask Jesus to dwell in our hearts, we are invited to take refuge in his Sacred Heart.

GET THE STORY.

Right now…

Don’t put it off…

Just stand up wherever you are… that’s right… come right on up front and GET THE STORY.

I’m going to ask the piano player to just keep playing quietly…

Professor Volokh has an interesting look at what a Justice Alito might do with respect to free speech and freedom of religion should he be seated on the Court.

Here’s the money quotes:

Supreme Court decisions involving the establishment clause [i.e., that the federal government shall not establish religion, which REALLY means that it can’t create a Church of the United States paralleling the Church of England, though which has been interpreted in all kinds of INSANE anti-religious ways since the days of Darth Earl Warren] have recently split more predictably down conservative-liberal lines. Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas have reasoned that government funding of programs may evenhandedly include religious institutions alongside secular institutions, and that the government’s own speech may include religious symbolism, at least when it’s generically monotheistic rather than specifically Christian.

Justices Stevens, Souter and Ginsburg have taken the opposite views. Justices Breyer and, especially, O’Connor have been swing votes, leaving the law not fully settled. Last year’s Ten Commandments cases, which upheld one display and struck down another, are the result.

It seems likely that a Justice Alito would give the conservatives a majority on issues involving funding and display. . . .

He also seems to conclude that equal treatment of religious institutions is not establishment, for instance holding that religious groups may have the same access as secular groups to public school bulletin boards. And he seems to lean toward viewing religious speech by the government–part of a longstanding American tradition–as constitutionally permissible, too.

GET THE (WHOLE) STORY.

Robert Bork has two really good points in a recent article he wrote on the Alito nomination.

Point #1:

Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito will hear a lot about stability in the law, the virtues of stare decisis,
and the reliance many women have placed on that decision. The obtrusive
fact is that constitutional law has never been stable. Precedent counts
for less in constitutional law than elsewhere for the very good reason
that the legislature can correct the Court’s mistake in interpreting a
statute, but the Court is final when it invokes the Constitution and
only the Court can correct its own mistakes. For that reason, many
justices have made the point that what controls is the Constitution
itself, not what the Court has said about it in the past.

In other words: Stare decisis is fo’ suckas! (At least in Constitutional law.)

Point #2:

If judgments about the prudence of overruling are invoked, the justices should take note of the fact that Roe
lies at the center of the bitter polarization of much of American
society. In countries where the issue is decided democratically, no
such intense animus exists. Compromises are worked out and each side
knows that it is free to continue the public debate in hope of doing
better next time. That was, and would be again, the case in America if
the subject of abortion were returned to state legislatures and
electorates. Overruling Roe would not, as some Democrats will
claim, make abortion illegal, but merely the subject of democratic
regulation. We have paid a high price for a ruling that rests upon
nothing in the Constitution and was arrived at in an opinion of just
over 51 pages that contains not a line of legal reasoning.

This is a very interesting point. It’s true that in countries where the courts have not seized control of the abortion issue that there is less polarization. Unfortunatley, in many of those countries (at least the ones in Europe) that have functional majorities that are pro-abort. In other countries, though (like ones in South America and many parts of Africa), they have functional pro-life majorities.

Once we get Roe overturned (however near or far in the future that may be), we need to get a functional pro-life majority here and then strengthen it to the point that we can get a constitutional amendment protecting innocent human life.

The process of getting such an amendment will involve changing numerous "hearts and minds" (to use a MUCH overworked cliche), but the process needs to start with getting just FIVE hearts and minds where they need to be.

Did you know that goldfish bowls make fish go blind? Well, Romans aren’t too sure that such a factoid is true, but it was floated in the press in Italy. Other experts posit that such bowls do not provide enough oxygen. Rather than allow Junior and his parents to discover that Jaws lives longer in an aquarium than in a goldfish bowl (presuming that such is true), Romans have outlawed the bowls altogether.

"The city of Rome has banned goldfish bowls, which animal rights activists say are cruel, and has made regular dog-walks mandatory in the Italian capital, the town’s council said on Tuesday.

"The classic spherical fish bowls are banned under a new by-law which also stops fish or other animals being given away as fairground prizes. It comes after a national law was passed to allow jail sentences for people who abandon cats or dogs.

"’It’s good to do whatever we can for our animals who in exchange for a little love fill our existence with their attention,’ said Monica Cirinna, the councilor behind the by-law.

"’The civilization of a city can also be measured by this,’ she told Rome daily Il Messaggero."

GET THE STORY.

The civilization of a city depends on the welfare of its goldfish? I do hope that Romans sleep easier knowing that their elected officials have made the streets of Rome safe for goldfish.