Among the more or less predictable reactions from legal adversaries to the Supreme Court’s finding that ministers may not bring employment discrimination suits against their churches, there is a pious sentiment to be found here and there — an appeal to an even higher law.

Even those who agreed with the unanimous court — and who have argued all along that the First Amendment provides an exception that lets churches, synagogues and other religious institutions hire and fire ministers and other religious leaders without government interference — can be heard cautioning the churches not to abuse that right.

Writing on the Web site of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, which had filed a brief urging the court to affirm the ministerial exception, Don Byrd, a blogger who teaches at a Christian university, said, “This particular case though can be a difficult one to think about for those of us who stand firmly against employment discrimination.”

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market

1. A Senior Priest wrote: Unlike other people, it seems, I find that giving religious judicatures free hand to -without recourse- kick people around a bad thing, not a good one. Clergy in a denomination ought to be able to unionize. Anyone who serves in a Christian (or other kind of religious) denomination still ought to have as a matter of civil rights be protected from at least egregious abuse and unfairness. January 14, 7:46 pm | [comment link]

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