Leondra Kruger, who is one of the black women that Biden may nominate to the US Supreme Court so we should probably learn something about what she might think.
In many ways she’s doctrinaire leftist. Totally pro-choice. Completely in support of LGBT and all that entails. But it was her radical view on religious liberty that stunned Supreme Court justices and should scare that heck out of any faithful Christian.
You want to know how radical she is on religious liberty? Justice Elena Kagan called her viewpoint “amazing.” Not in a good way. She said it like, “it’s amazing that someone with a law degree could be this stupid.”
The case was Hosanna Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School vs. EEOC. The case would decide whether religious organization had to follow anti-discrimination laws when choosing employees. The court decided on something called the “ministerial exception” which guarantees that religious organizations have the right to hire and fire for mission. If that is taken away, they no longer have religious liberty. It’s as simple as that. And, here’s the thing, it was unanimously ruled by the court that religious organizations were exempt from anti-discrimination laws because if Catholics can’t hire Catholics to run Catholic organizations then there’s no such thing as Catholic organizations anymore. Unanimously.
But Leondra Kruger didn’t agree.
Fox News:
The justice’s ruling recognized that “it is impermissible for the government to contradict a church’s determination of who can act as its ministers.”
In his opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the Obama administration’s argument was “hard to square with the text of the First Amendment itself, which gives special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations.”
“We cannot accept the remarkable view that the Religion Clauses have nothing to say about a religious organization’s freedom to select its own ministers,” he opined.
During oral arguments, Roberts pressed Kruger on whether there is “a ministerial exception distinct from the right of association under the First Amendment.”
“We think that the ministerial exception is one that incorporates the right of association as well as the rights under the religion clauses,” Kruger responded.
“Is there anything special about the fact that the people involved in this case are part of a religious organization?” Roberts retorted.
Kruger said her team thought the Court “has elaborated in other cases involving similar claims to autonomy, noninterference” but was interrupted by Roberts.
“Is that a ‘no?’ You say it’s similar to other cases. Expressive associations — a group of people who are interested in labor rights have expressive associations,” Roberts asked. “Is the issue we are talking about here in the view of the United States any different than any other group of people who get together for an expressive right?”
Kruger said her side believed “the basic contours of the inquiry are not different” before repeating her point about similar cases, eliciting a response from several justices.
“That’s extraordinary… We’re talking here about the Free Exercise Clause and about the Establishment Clause, and you say they have no special application to –,” the late Justice Antonin Scalia said, with Kruger finishing his sentence.
“The contours — but the inquiry that the Court has set out as to expressive associations we think translate quite well to analyzing the claim that Petitioner has made here. And for this reason, we don’t think that the job duties of a particular religious employee in an organization are relevant to the inquiry….” Kruger said.
“So, this is to go back to Justice Scalia’s question, because I too find that amazing, that you think that the Free — neither the Free Exercise Clause nor the Establishment Clause has anything to say about a church’s relationship with its own employees,” Justice Elena Kagan said.”
When Elena Kagan is shocked by how left you are, you might even be left of John Roberts. This woman is unfit for the court. And if she gets on the high court, then this country will shortly be unfit for faithful Christians.
