On Thursday, July 23, Stanley Carlson-Thies, founder and senior director of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance, and Chelsea Langston Bombino, director of Sacred Sector, both initiatives of the Center for Public Justice, facilitated a webinar for the Wesleyan Church regarding how recent Supreme Court decisions impact these congregations in terms of their understanding of the legal and public policy implications, their own organizational practices, and their public witness. This webinar covered two major Supreme Court cases this term: Bostock v. Clayton County and Our Lady of Guadalupe School, which both had implications for how faith-based organizations engage in religious staffing. This webinar discussed best practices for engaging in mission-based human resources, as well as for how faith-based employers can advance civic pluralism.
Government Should Protect the Civil Rights and Religious Freedom of All The U.S. Supreme Court today extended federal employment protection to LGBT employees in a…
**STATEMENT** The Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance Endorses the Fairness for All Bill December 6, 2019 (WASHINGTON, DC) – The Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance supports the…
An August 15th Trump administration proposal to clarify the religious hiring rights of religious employers in federal contracting is being labeled a “license to discriminate” against LGBT job seekers. Dr. Stanley Carlson-Thies suggests an alternative framework for understanding this proposed rulemaking: it is a much-needed effort to affirm the religious staffing freedom that exists in the federal contracting rules and that was left untouched when President Obama added protections for LGBT people. There are not many religious organizations that contract with the federal government (in distinction from receiving federal grants). Still, the proposed changes are important protections for their religious rights and important also for ensuring that such organizations—who may be the best providers of goods and services—are not excluded from eligibility.
The House of Representatives passed the Equality Act on May 17, 2019, to add to federal civil rights law new prohibitions on discrimination on the bases of sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as other protections. As Stanley Carlson-Thies points out, the Act is unlikely to be taken up by the Senate. This is good news because the Equality Act as drafted and passed would have multiple negative consequences for religious freedom. The article notes major religious freedom critiques, including denominational and other voices proposing a “fairness for all” alternative that would simultaneously protect LGBT and religious rights.
The Equality Act, which would add to federal civil rights laws new prohibitions of discrimination on the bases of sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex, was introduced into the House of Representatives on March 13. Supporters of the Equality Act claim that it protects religious freedom, but in fact it would severely constrain many faith-based organizations and persons of faith who simply desire to live by their convictions about human sexuality and marriage without harming others. In this article, Stanley Carlson-Thies presents the Fairness for All framework as a new and better way to protect both LGBT people and religious freedom.