Religion and the Law File

This article - Christianity Today Magazine - Is Male-Only Ordination Illegal? - reports on a woman who couldn't become a Catholic priest, but did become a lawyer. She is now suing for violation of her civil rights and challenging the Catholic Church's tax exempt status using the Supreme Court's decision in the Bob Jones case as precedent.

The first part is nonsense. Every civil rights statute I know includes an exemption for religious organizations. That only makes sense since religion is inherently discriminatory. I reckon the good folks at Covenant Community Church can lawfully exclude Monsigneur Hargenduguy from saying Mass - or preaching - in their church on the grounds that he is, well, a Catholic. If that exemption wasn't enough, the Supreme Court at the very least has fostered a robust doctrine of free association these days. The net result is that that part of the suit is frivolous, which is legally a very bad thing.

I'm not so sure about the second part of the lawsuit. In the Bob Jones decision the hidebound - and anti-Catholic - Christian university was denied tax exempt status because of its regressive views on race. Let's be clear on this, Bob Jone University is a pustule on the body politic of American society. But my feeling at the time was that it was a bad thing for the government to be in the business of picking and choosing what religious beliefs were entitled to tax exempt status. My feeling was also that if Bob Jones' members wanted to interpret the Bible in their fundamentalist way that way, that was their business, so long as they didn't hurt anyone else. No one was required to go to Bob Jones.

The Catholic Church's position on female ordination does run counter to politically correct social thought [which is one of its charms.] It's also, however, a religious decision. Nonetheless, it is not hard to imagine that a District Court judge, empowered by the Bob Jones decision and animus against religion or the Catholic Church, may not be willing to distinguish the small fundamentalist university from the large, ancient religious tradition.