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Showing posts with label First Liberty Institute. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Another Attack On The First Amendment? Does Freedom Of Religion Prevent Private Companies From Preventing Free Exercise?

RETIRED PASTOR THREATENED WITH EVICTION OVER BIBLE STUDY

Landlord claims Christian gatherings are a 'business'

Published: 1 day ago

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A company that runs a senior-living center in Fredericksburg, Virginia, has decided that a Bible study is a “business” and consequently has threatened to evict a retired Lutheran pastor and his wife for conducting one in their residence.

“Evicting elderly residents from their home for holding a Bible study is not only outrageous, it’s illegal,” asserts First Liberty Institute, which has issued a letter to the center demanding it withdraw the threat.

“Ken Hauge is a retired Lutheran minister. He and his wife, Liv, received a notice threatening eviction from Community Realty Company (CRC) claiming that Ken’s leadership of a Bible study violates his lease. The Bible study previously met in the apartment complex community room until CRC instituted a policy prohibiting residents from using the community room for ‘religious services or for other religious activities,'” First Liberty explained.

The actions violate the federal Fair Housing Act, and the First Liberty letter to Community Realty Company, which runs the Evergreens at Smith Run, and lawyer Joshua Greenberg demands that they fix the problem.

“We request that CRC and the Evergreens take the following actions: 1) rescind the Notice [of eviction] and remove it from the Hauges’s tenant file; 2) rescind the July 23 Community Room Policy prohibiting religious activities and notify Evergreens residents accordingly; 3) restore Hauge’s access to the Community Room for the Bible study; and 4) take prompt steps to curtail the pattern of harassment against the Hauges and other residents of faith who attend the Bible study.”

The legal team set a deadline of Thursday.

“Should you deny these requests or fail to respond to his letter, we are prepared to pursue all available legal remedies, including reporting the matter to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.”

The letter said Hauge “has been stopped in the hallway and subjected to profane rants, and several individuals have attempted to disrupt the Bible study on multiple occasions.”

The Hauges, both in their 80s, moved into the residence early in 2017. Ken Hauge volunteers at a local church, and some members asked if he and his wife would hold a Bible study in their home.

The community room was available, and center allowed them to use it if they called the gathering a “book review” instead of a Bible study.

Later the rules for using the room were changed to ban Bible studies entirely.

The policy change was cited in the eviction letter in which managers stated, “Landlord has learned that you have hosted Bible study classes in the Club Room.”

The property managers said the policy violated the lease, which states, “Conducting any kind of business (including child care services) in your apartment or in the apartment community is prohibited.”

While the managers said the community room should be used for events such as bridal showers, birthday parties, wedding receptions, funeral gatherings, resident socials, pot lucks and management seminars, they insisted they retain the right to cancel any event.

But the First Liberty team explained that the residential property managers allowed other residents to remove notices about the Bible studies.

The actions by the Evergreens “violate the Fair Housing Act and its accompanying regulations,” First Liberty contended. “The FHA prohibits discrimination ‘against any person in the terms, conditions, or privileges of the sale or rental of a dwelling, or in the provision of services or facilities in connection therewith, because of … religion.”

The letter to the lawyer for the property managers warned him his clients “have established a long record of obstructing and stifling residents’ religious beliefs and the free exercise thereof.”

“Finally, Hauge and other Bible study attendees also have endured harassment and verbal abuse from residents who oppose the Bible study ideologically – harassment and abuse to which your clients appear indifferent.

“These residents appear to take offense from encountering residents whose beliefs differ from their own, subjecting Hauge and other Bible study attendees to verbal abuse and attempting not to impede the Bible study on multiple occasions,” First Liberty wrote.

Read more at https://www.wnd.com/2018/08/retired-minister-threatened-with-eviction-over-bible-study/#9SgdZKWgLXcTLUCJ.99

Thursday, August 11, 2016

Religion Under Attack In The Military

MILITARY COURT CLAIMS POWER TO DECIDE 'IMPORTANCE' OF RELIGION

Attorney fighting for Marine, 'This is absolutely outrageous'

Published: 2 hours ago

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Lance Cpl. Monifa Sterling

In a stunning ruling that likely will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, a military court has decided it can determine whether or not a certain religious practice is “important” enough to be protected.

“This is absolutely outrageous,” said Kelly Shackelford, president of First Liberty Institute, after the decision in the case against a Marine who posted a Bible verse at her work station.

“A few judges decided they could strip a Marine of her constitutional rights just because they didn’t think her beliefs were important enough to be protected,” he said. “If they can court-martial a Marine over a Bible verse, what’s to stop them from punishing service members for reading the Bible, [talking] about their faith, or praying?”

“

WND reported at the end of 2015 when a lower military court delivered the judgment against Lance Cpl. Monifa Sterling, who, at three places in her work space, posted a phrase from Isaiah 54:17, “No weapons formed against me shall prosper.”

According to the brief, her supervisor said, “I don’t like the tone” and told her to remove the verses.

“When Sterling declined, her supervisor took them down at the end of the duty day. Sterling reprinted and re-posted the messages, but she found them in the trash the next morning. She was then court-martialed,” according to the complaint.

“No one in our military who goes to work every day to defend our freedoms should then be court-martialed for exercising those very freedoms,” said Daniel Briggs, a former Air Force JAG officer now with the Alliance Defending Freedom, at the time.

“This case is about Monifa, but it is also about every American who puts on the uniform in service to this country. The question is whether they will be allowed to exercise their faith in the military, or whether they will be denied the same constitutionally protected freedoms they have volunteered to defend and are willing to die for.”

The latest development, this week, was an affirmation by the Court of Appeals of the Armed Forces’ punishment of Sterling.

The next step will be an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, her legal team said.

“This is a real-life example of why judges shouldn’t play theologians,” said Daniel Blomberg, legal counsel of the Becket Fund, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Sterling.

“Here, a few judges concluded that keeping scripture nearby isn’t ‘important,’ even though more than half of the world’s population belong to religions that teach the exact opposite. Avoiding obvious errors like this is why RFRA protects all religious beliefs, not just beliefs that government officials deem ‘important.'”

The organization pointed out that Sterling’s co-workers were permitted to keep nonreligious messages on their desks. And it argued her actions were protected by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

One judge on the military panel disagreed with the punishment, noting that federal law “does not empower judges to curtail various manifestations of sincere religious belief simply by arbitrarily deciding that a certain act was not ‘important’ to the believer’s exercise of religion.”

The Becket Fund’s brief was on behalf of religious faiths, including Anglican, Catholic, Jewish, Lutheran, Mormon, Muslim, Presbyterian, Sikh and Southern Baptist.

“Last I checked, Marines weren’t afraid of anything – and they certainly don’t need to be afraid of religious liberty,” said Blomberg. “In fact, it was the military itself that taught our young country how protecting religious liberty is good for our nation, good for mission accomplishment.”

Mike Berry, director of military affairs for First Liberty, pointed out: “Gen. Patton famously prayed on the eve of battle. According to the majority [court] opinion, if Gen. Patton couldn’t prove how important praying was to him, he could be court-martialed for his prayer.”

Shackelford took up the argument.

“This is shameful, it’s wrong, and it sets a terrible precedent, jeopardizing the constitutional rights of every single man and woman in military service. We will appeal directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. This cannot be allowed to stand.”

The court’s dissenting minority pointed out the failings of the majority’s logic.

“At trial, LCpl Sterling adequately demonstrated that the actions for which she was being court-martialed constituted ‘religious’ conduct. [She] testified that both the substance and placement of her signs were inspired by her Christian faith. The slips of paper that LCpl Sterling placed on her workspace were organized in the form of the ‘trinity,’ an unmistakable Christian motif, and on them was printed a biblically inspired quotation: ‘No sword formed against me shall prosper.’

“There is no doubt that LCpl Sterling’s conduct required further analysis under the provisions of RFRA.”

The dissent warned: “It has long been recognized that courts are particularly ill equipped to govern what does or does not constitute ‘religion.’ … The majority opinion ventures beyond that which is necessary to decide the issue before us. In the course of doing so, the court not only fails to ensure the proper application of RFRA to LCpl Sterling’s specific case, it more generally imposes a legal framework that unnecessarily curtails the religious freedom of our nation’s servicemen.”

Before the decision was announced, Ron Crews, executive director of Chaplain Alliance for Religion Liberty, commented, “Congress and the courts have made it clear that religious freedom is truly our first freedom; it must not be watered down and should be burdened only in the most extreme circumstances.

“This is just as true in the military. Though it is a unique institution with a mission that must be accomplished, service members cannot be forced to check their faith when they put on the uniform. Their religious freedom is more precious than ever before and must be strongly defended. Those who are willing to give all deserve nothing less.”

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Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/08/military-court-claims-power-to-decide-importance-of-religion/#XATyDi0E17kf6T8b.99