IMMUNIZING CHURCHES TO CREATE IMMUNITY FOR A CORRUPT PRESIDENT
U.S. Supreme Court Broadens Ministerial Exemption to Employment Discrimination Claims
So I sat here tonight and I looked over at a pile of papers made up of two-plus reams of printed material of over 1200 single pages of material of online sourced writings I had printed out for research-reading over the course of the past year to use for my Substack writings, that is all in addition to the numerous books and journal articles I read constantly, and wondered what sparkling gem of a topic might I find in the pile to write about; I decided to take a look through the pile of papers to see what might be of pertinence for writing some essays over the course of the next few months.
I was not disappointed.
the “ministerial exception” immunizes religious institutions from employment discrimination claims by teachers — and perhaps non-teachers — with religious duties.1
The above quote is an example of religious exceptionalism that every concerned citizen should take great exception against because of its potential for creating a vortex into which many of our civil rights might be pulled into and dismissed by court order from society.
The case in question is Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru.
The case is neatly summarized in less than one-thousand words online at the McGuireWoods Consulting website which can be accessed at the following URL: https://www.mcguirewoods.com/client-resources/alerts/2020/7/us-supreme-court-broadens-ministerial-exemption-employment-discrimination-claims/
Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the court’s decision:
In dissent, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued that the majority collapsed “Hosanna-Tabor’s careful analysis into a single consideration: whether a church thinks its employees play an important religious role.” She dissented because “that simplistic approach has no basis in law and strips thousands of schoolteachers of their legal protections.” She cautioned that the “Court’s conclusion portends grave consequences,” with “over a hundred thousand secular teachers whose rights are at risk.” She also speculated that the widening gyre of “ministerial exception” case law could ultimately swallow “the rights of countless coaches, camp counselors, nurses, social-service workers, in-house lawyers, media-relations personnel, and many others who work for religious institutions.”2
So as can be determined from this previous ruling by the court the Justices have already grappled with the matter of immunity; the purpose of immunizing something is that it is the first step towards creating immunity. Curiously enough from my perspective it seems to me that the court is also attempting to immunize itself against the established system of checks and balances with its flagrant disregard for the obvious ongoing corruption with its gift receiving problem and its clear and obvious attempt to remain as unaccountable as possible. As Micklethwait & Woolridge discuss in their eye-opening tome The Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the State:
The third problem is money…It is all very good defending this political expenditure [campaign financing, lobbyism,”spin doctors, image mongers, and political consultants” etcetera] as a constitutionally protected exercise in free speech. But it creates the impression that American democracy is for sale; that the rich have more power than the poor; that favors are being exchanged and deals being done. No matter how often American politicians and donors insist that nothing is being traded, any study of human psychology, not to mention any DVD of The Godfather, suggests that “gifts” create obligations and expectations on both sides.3
The longer the court continues without adhering to the checks and balances in place or being held accountable for the obvious and increasing corruption taking place the more difficult will it be to bring the court under the control of the people, and yes I do mean control and that is done first and foremost with accountability.
When it comes to the highest court in the land one of my greatest concerns, in the light of my understanding of the place of judges in the Old Testament, is that as the Christian nationalist movement continues to attempt to push its way into control of the country, decisions like the one made in the case in view will be used more and more often in subtle, unnoticed, and unrealized ways to dismantle all civil rights and create a genuinely dystopian “Handmaids Tale” society that is ultimately ruled by the judges. The president becomes “the lawgiver” and the enforcer of the law much like Moses was, while the supreme court judges become the seventy judges [edited to add: or 70 “elders” depending on which translation of the Bible is being used.] who helped Moses rule the twelve tribes. As for congress, it will be like a multi-denominational mega-church where matters are discussed and calls for rulings will be made while the whole of congress will be entirely subject to the lawgiver and his judges.
This decision was made in 2020 and so then has been in force for four years now. It seems to me that it might be a good idea for someone to look into any number of the cases that might have gone through the court system because of this decision.
Movement-Conservatism has been playing the long game since the mid-late 1960s, and they have been actively subverting as many legal decisions as possible with the goal and objective of using the legal system to create the circumstances that we as a country currently are grappling with as we strive to keep our freedoms and liberties against the devious machinations of organized religion’s attempt to claim a deity level control over the lives of all who live in America today and then the world tomorrow. Their Kingdom of Heaven demands nothing less than total subjugation of all; both non-believers and believers alike.
So now upon contemplation about the recent ruling regarding presidential immunity, it seems to me that the conservative judges already had a framework in mind for creating a select immunity situation and probably did intentionally drag the case out over the term’s remaining time and announced their decisions so as to support convict-Trump, because those judges who sit corruptly upon the bench know that their own political survival depends on Trump being elected. Otherwise when President Biden is sworn into office for a fourth time on January 20, 2025 one of his first orders of business should be to deal with the most corrupted Supreme Court bench ever to be seated in American History.
If you learned anything new or of interest to you or if you think someone you know whether it be an individual or a larger audience might benefit from reading my writings, then please take the time to cross-post, restack, or share this essay or any of my other writings. The more people know about what is happening with our Democracy the better are our chances of defending our freedoms and civil rights against the scourge and destitution of the MAGA-Republican movement and its defacto dictator convict-Trump.
Thank you for reading.
Robert J. Rei, Fall River, MA. July 9, 2024
"There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self." -Aldous Huxley
U.S. Supreme Court Broadens Ministerial Exemption to Employment Discrimination Claims, McGuireWoods Consulting, July 10, 2020, https://www.mcguirewoods.com/client-resources/alerts/2020/7/us-supreme-court-broadens-ministerial-exemption-employment-discrimination-claims/
Ibidem
The Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the State, John Micklethwait & Adrian Woolridge, 2014, The Penguin Press, New York, NY. Pages 257-258
Religion is a tool of subjugation devised by men to assure their ongoing control by surmounting reason with the infallibility of belief.
Utter and complete madness.
As is usually is the case, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor got it right in her 2020 dissent. High schools run by the Catholic Church admit students of all religious backgrounds. (At least the ones I’m aware of in California. And interestingly, they use that to recruit some of the best high school athletes.) Religion classes taught on Catholic ideology and pray time have an opt out for non-adherents. They are allowed to take an alternative class or the equivalent of study hall. So if the students have an opt out, why not the non-religious instruction staff? There appears to be a double standard between those the school accepts money from (enrolled students) and those they pay money out to (staff). The situation is probably much worse at schools run by evangelical Protestant churches, many of which are barely disguised indoctrination centers.