JCC JFJ SOL

I can't make head or tail out of what happened at this Jewish community center on the East Coast, but the implications seem troubling...

Finding Title VII's exemption for religious institutions "is not limited to facilities where prayer takes place," a magistrate judge has dismissed a suit against a Jewish community center brought by an evangelical Christian who claims she was fired because she attended a "Jews for Jesus" concert.

In his 15-page opinion in LeBoon v. Lancaster Jewish Community Center, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacob P. Hart rejected the plaintiff's argument that the LJCC is not entitled to the exemption because its purpose is "essentially secular," and it is not affiliated with any synagogue.

Instead, Hart found that courts have taken a broader view of the exemption, extending it to any institution that includes religion among its primary purposes.

Plaintiff's attorney J. Michael Considine Jr. of West Chester, Pa. argued in court papers that LJCC's mission statement showed that it focuses on developing a Jewish community in Lancaster through "identity, education and cooperation."

As a result, Considine argued, LJCC's mission "is not spiritual."

Hart disagreed, saying "this fails to take account of the fact that LJCC seeks to sustain a specifically Jewish community."

I can't stand the Jews for Jesus, and what the hell is an Evangelical Christian doing working at a JCC?  However, if I'm reading this right, it sets a dangerous precedent. If they fired her for performance reasons, that sounds fair (and she sounds like a pain.) However, the judge went beyond that to say that the JCC is basically entitled to act like a religious institution, and remove staff for religious reasons.

Our local JCCs are not synagogues. They are community centers. Many people who go to them are not Jewish, and I suspect that the staff is also quite mixed. So this ruling puzzles me. I am troubled by the priority given to institutional rights over individual rights.

Next time, it won't be a JCC. It will be one of Bush's faith-based  — read Christian — agencies, which he's hell-bent on substituting for public programs, and who will lose their job then? A Buddhist? A Jew?

I really hope I'm just overreacting, but I suspect not...

Updated to add: nope, I wasn't overreacting. Christianity Today has the same interpretation of this ruling that I did.

Remember March's California Supreme Court ruling against Catholic Charities, which argued just the opposite: Employing and offering social services to non-Catholics makes the ministry non-religious. Remember also the U.S. government's revoking Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen's "special immigrant religious worker" visa because Fuller Seminary isn't tied to a denomination.

Where this may probably be the best news is in any expansion of the faith-based initiative. Some pundits and politicians have been adamant that publicly funded religious organizations be forbidden from making staffing decisions on religious grounds. Hart's decision may help to shore up the rights of faith-based groups to stay rooted in their faith. Religious organizations must have the right to fire employees whose actions and religious beliefs are diametrically opposed to that organization's mission.

In other words, they want to be able to discriminate on the basis of religion in their hiring practices, but they want to be able to use my tax dollars to do it.

Edited to add again:

Look who else is happy about this: Stormfront, the white supremicist group! (I'm not linking to them because they scare me)

This sets a precedent for the right to start white Communities, and solicit ONLY white membership. Or are they going to tell us now that only jews have that right?

Like I keep saying, these losers are going to defeat themselves. Them calling us racist is definately the Tea Pot calling the Kettle black.

Greeatttttt...