Should the State tell churches who they can hire?

By Tom Quiner

Jeremiah Wright: the president's pastor for twenty years

Something amazing happened. The Supreme Court just issued a unanimous ruling. In recent years, the Court has been split down the middle with with one split decision after another.

It took another of Barack Obama’s radical Justice Department shenanigans to unite the nine justices.

The case:  Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The Obama Justice department said that if a church violates anti-discrimination laws, the government can tell the church who they may hire as a minister.

Team Obama said the clergy have no special protection under the Constitution, the First Amendment be damned.

The case was argued by Douglas Laycock on behalf of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. He said:

“This is a huge win for religious liberty. The Court has unanimously confirmed the right of churches to select their own ministers and religious leaders.”

A spokesman for the Becket Fund said:

“This case is important on several levels, not the least of which is that unanimous opinion is an utter repudiation of the Obama administration’s radical approach to this case. The Justice department actually stood up in the Supreme Court and said the First Amendment is essentially irrelevant to a church’s ability to hire and fire its own ministers. They wanted to make it just another freedom of association case, as if whom to employ to teach a church’s doctrine is no more remarkable than the decision of a local plumbers union on who should represent it on a weekly bowling tournament.”

How would you like Team Obama selecting your pastor for you? How would you like sitting through a weekly rant from Reverend Jeremiah Wright?

Religious freedom is under relentless assault from this administration. Voters better wise up fast. The freedom of religion is our most precious freedom. America is nothing without it.

Please … don’t take it for granted.

[Quiner’s Diner has written on the subject of religious freedom before. This is a big issue. Forward this post to your friends. Post it on your Facebook page. Be sure to check out a recent post, “The relentless assault on our religious liberties.”]