Someone Should Sue the Catholic Church!

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-- Someone Should Sue the Catholic Church!

Posted by St_Andrew on Sep-23-2005 21:43:

Someone Should Sue the Catholic Church!

How can it be legal that some churches (all catholic for example) only allows male priests? I mean in any country with anti discrimination laws, that would CLEARLY be illegal. Have their been any legal case with this?

Just another reason for a preemptive strike on the vatican imo

Posted by metalgearsolid on Sep-23-2005 21:46:

Wow! you are really in a talky mood so I must respond because I am bored and I don't have anything to do till later. I have to agree with sueing the catholic church for several reasons one of those being what you said. But anyways what are nuns for I know they are not like priests but they are up there or somewhere close.

Posted by Shakka on Sep-23-2005 21:53:

Re: Someone Should Sue the Catholic Church!

Posted by St_Andrew on Sep-23-2005 21:56:

quote:
Originally posted by metalgearsolid
Wow! you are really in a talky mood so I must respond because I am bored and I don't have anything to do till later. I have to agree with sueing the catholic church for several reasons one of those being what you said. But anyways what are nuns for I know they are not like priests but they are up there or somewhere close.

Lol yeah, well I made the stupid decision to stay home a friday night, haven't done that in a while so I thought it would be nice, already regretting I did tho.... hehe

But ya, let's sue 'em!

quote:
Originally posted by Shakka
Shit, I dunno, separation of church & state perhaps? The real question is, are there any Catholic women that want to be priests? Anyone? Any takers???

But you still have anti discrimination laws right? Which applies to EVERYONE, including the churches!

Posted by LiquidX on Sep-23-2005 22:14:

Its a practice within the religion.. so that would have the US law of Freedom of Religion broken. If woman dont agree with the catholic church then they could easily make a new religion where there is a woman pope. Its that easy. Im not a catholic so I dont know any further then that

Posted by St_Andrew on Sep-23-2005 22:30:

quote:
Originally posted by LiquidX
Its a practice within the religion.. so that would have the US law of Freedom of Religion broken. If woman dont agree with the catholic church then they could easily make a new religion where there is a woman pope. Its that easy. Im not a catholic so I dont know any further then that

If I came up with a religion where it's okay to kill ppl, would that mean I could legally kill ppl then? Don't think so! These religions still have to work within the frameworks of our laws!

Posted by Fir3start3r on Sep-23-2005 23:45:

Heck, if "Jedi-ism" can become a religion what's stoppin' them?

Posted by Shakka on Sep-24-2005 23:21:

quote:
Originally posted by Fir3start3r
Heck, if "Jedi-ism" can become a religion what's stoppin' them?

It already is, young padewan.

Posted by Shakka on Sep-24-2005 23:30:

quote:
Originally posted by St_Andrew
If I came up with a religion where it's okay to kill ppl, would that mean I could legally kill ppl then? Don't think so! These religions still have to work within the frameworks of our laws!

Charles Manson didn't get away with it. Fuckin' California

Do country clubs break the law when they only allow male members? I think Augusta National just pissed her off and she loved the spotlight.

Furthermore, if it's just a function of the structure of the organization, and they reserve the right to select their own officers/leaders, what's the big deal?

Posted by St_Andrew on Sep-24-2005 23:42:

quote:
Originally posted by Shakka
Charles Manson didn't get away with it. Fuckin' California

Do country clubs break the law when they only allow male members? I think Augusta National just pissed her off and she loved the spotlight.

Hmm, I think it mainly deal with employment tho? For clubs and such I actually think there is some kind of clause where you can have guys only or girls only. But when it comes to employment laws they are much stricter and dont allow such thing. I have never heard of any such exception anyway?

quote:
Furthermore, if it's just a function of the structure of the organization, and they reserve the right to select their own officers/leaders, what's the big deal?

Well, thing is that they don't have that right to decide that they only want to hire a certain gender, cause we have anti discrimination laws. However, I'm not sure of how american laws works, but about canadian/swedish im sure it wouldn't work...

Only reason why I care is because I'm pissed of the double morals that you allow religions to break some of the basic prinsiples of society, just because they are that, religions. And of course it's always fun to bash the church

Posted by Pio on Sep-25-2005 21:35:

Re: Someone Should Sue the Catholic Church!

quote:
Originally posted by St_Andrew
How can it be legal that some churches (all catholic for example) only allows male priests? I mean in any country with anti discrimination laws, that would CLEARLY be illegal. Have their been any legal case with this?

Just another reason for a preemptive strike on the vatican imo

That will never be illegal. It's basic American constitutional law.

The Principle of Equal Protection that arises from the 14th amendment is only applicable to public entities, not a private organization such as the Catholic Church.

The only individual right enumerated in the Bill of Rights that can be imposed upon private parties is the prohibition of slavery in the 13th amendment. The 13th amendment is self-executing because it regulates directly a specific conduct by private individuals (slave holders). Because of this fact, Congress's power under the 13th amendment allows it to punish forms of private conduct when it might not be able to do so under an amendment such as the 14th, which restricts the conduct of states (prohibiting states from denying equal protection of the laws or due process), making it a strict matter of public law.

Another reason of equal weight that would make such regulation impossible is the constitutional principle of the separation of Church and State that arises from the 1st Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". Free exercise means that the Catholic Church can structure itself as it wishes.

Posted by St_Andrew on Sep-25-2005 22:39:

Re: Re: Someone Should Sue the Catholic Church!

quote:
Originally posted by Pio
That will never be illegal. It's basic American constitutional law.

The Principle of Equal Protection that arises from the 14th amendment is only applicable to public entities, not a private organization such as the Catholic Church.

The only individual right enumerated in the Bill of Rights that can be imposed upon private parties is the prohibition of slavery in the 13th amendment. The 13th amendment is self-executing because it regulates directly a specific conduct by private individuals (slave holders). Because of this fact, Congress's power under the 13th amendment allows it to punish forms of private conduct when it might not be able to do so under an amendment such as the 14th, which restricts the conduct of states (prohibiting states from denying equal protection of the laws or due process), making it a strict matter of public law.

Another reason of equal weight that would make such regulation impossible is the constitutional principle of the separation of Church and State that arises from the 1st Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". Free exercise means that the Catholic Church can structure itself as it wishes.

So you have no anti discrimination laws in the US of A

Posted by Pio on Sep-25-2005 23:46:

Re: Re: Re: Someone Should Sue the Catholic Church!

quote:
Originally posted by St_Andrew
So you have no anti discrimination laws in the US of A

Of course there are. But they are almost exclusively applicable to the public spheres of the law, meaning the federal government and the states through the 14th amendment (equal protection of the law and due process). This is why public schools were desegregated by a Supreme Court decision, not ALL schools were (including private and religious schools).

To understand this better lets look at it from this simple example. The 1st amendment grants me freedom of speech, but only against the state. I don't have a fundamental right that grants me freedom of speech in Tranceaddict or in a movie theater or in a restaurant. These are private entities that can reserve their right to admit us as long as we follow their rules, which actually restrict speech.

Congress has legislated anti-discrimination laws that oblige the private sector such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but these are backed by a wide interpretation of the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution. This clause gives Congress the right to regulate commerce between the states. The Civil Rights Act takes into account that private employers/corporations across the US benefit from interstate commerce, and as a consequence Congress has a right to regulate how these private entities do business, including their hiring practices (ie. anti-discrimination laws that affected private employers were declared constitutional in the 1960s.)

Those were the holdings of the Supreme Court in the 1960s, which was way more liberal than the Rhenquist Court that lives on today. Nowadays the clause is construed more narrowly, and anti-discrimination laws are harder to get by in the private arena.

Posted by St_Andrew on Sep-26-2005 15:10:

Re: Re: Re: Re: Someone Should Sue the Catholic Church!

quote:
Originally posted by Pio
Congress has legislated anti-discrimination laws that oblige the private sector such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but these are backed by a wide interpretation of the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution. This clause gives Congress the right to regulate commerce between the states. The Civil Rights Act takes into account that private employers/corporations across the US benefit from interstate commerce, and as a consequence Congress has a right to regulate how these private entities do business, including their hiring practices (ie. anti-discrimination laws that affected private employers were declared constitutional in the 1960s.)

There you go, those were the kind of laws I was talking about. So my questions is, why wouldn't the catholic church fall under this category? Or it doesn't matter for them cause they don't benefit from the interstate commerce? Wouldn't that be true for all small companies too then?

Posted by Pio on Sep-26-2005 17:39:

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Someone Should Sue the Catholic Church!

quote:
Originally posted by St_Andrew
There you go, those were the kind of laws I was talking about. So my questions is, why wouldn't the catholic church fall under this category? Or it doesn't matter for them cause they don't benefit from the interstate commerce? Wouldn't that be true for all small companies too then?

Because the Catholic Church (or any established religion) doesn't fall exactly into the corporation/employer position that would justify such regulation that the commerce clause merits. The 1st amendment creates a special category for these organizations, and the state is prevented from regulating or creating new limits on the exercise and organization of said religious groups.

Posted by St_Andrew on Sep-27-2005 15:20:

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Someone Should Sue the Catholic Church!

quote:
Originally posted by Pio
Because the Catholic Church (or any established religion) doesn't fall exactly into the corporation/employer position that would justify such regulation that the commerce clause merits. The 1st amendment creates a special category for these organizations, and the state is prevented from regulating or creating new limits on the exercise and organization of said religious groups.

Guess that makes sense. I think in most countries with a less strong constitution it works differently tho. And don't the staets have their own anti-discrimination laws too?

At least I'm sure the church would fall under employment laws here in Sweden (then again the catholic church is about as big here as it is in Iran probably), in Canada too I *think* (which have a huge catholic population).