Fontbonne

Will religious liberty survive in Massachusetts?

Will religious liberty survive in Massachusetts?

Andrew Beckwith

This has been a bad week for people of faith in Massachusetts. On Wednesday, Norfolk County Superior Court Judge Douglas Wilkins ruled that Fontbonne Academy, a Catholic all-girls school in Milton, cannot refuse to hire a man who is married to another man, despite the fact that Catholic teaching defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Ironically, this is exactly the scenario that the religious exemption amendment to the 1989 bill adding sexual orientation to our state employment non-discrimination laws was designed to prevent.

As Judge Wilkins pointed out, however, this was a case of "first impression," meaning that the law had yet to be tested in court on this issue. Pinning his reasoning on the state's definition of employer, rather than the religious safe harbor provision that should apply, Judge Wilkins confined religious protection to schools that "limit membership, enrollment, admission or participation" to members of the specific faith of the school.

The American religious muddle 
Catholic

The American religious muddle 

Kevin P. Martin

The First Amendment famously guards against a government "establishment of religion," while simultaneously protecting "the free exercise thereof." But it says nothing about private religious biases, which are widespread and play an interesting political role in modern America.

Anti-Muslim bias, and anti-anti-Muslim bias, have been all over the news. Only about three weeks ago, Islamic State-inspired terrorists slaughtered 14 Americans in San Bernardino, an attack that followed hot on the heels of the murder of 130 people in Paris. But within days, horror over these Islamist attacks was replaced by horror over Donald Trump's silly call for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States." Trump's bluster somehow managed to recast Islam as the innocent victim of San Bernardino.

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