Welcome to the party pal. While the U.S. government is stripping away religious liberty rights, the Catholic Church has taken a brave stand for the past few years, sometimes seemingly alone. Well finally, a Unitarian Church in Massachusetts has filed a lawsuit which invokes the right to religious liberty. Yay, right?
Except for one little thing.
The Unitarian church isn’t arguing about the HHS Mandate or the right to hire for mission. Nope. They’re invoking their religious liberty rights in order to install solar panels in a Historic District.
The complaint (full text) in First Parish in Bedford, Unitarian Universalist v. Historic District Commission of the Town of Bedford, (MA Superior Ct., filed 6/27/2016), contends that the denial of a certificate of appropriateness to install solar panels on the roof of its Meetinghouse infringes church members’ free exercise of religion in violation of the Massachusetts and U.S. Constitutions. The complaint alleges that:
Unitarian Universalists … believe that their religion necessarily involves taking action on a personal, congregational and community level to confront and mitigate mankind’s role in causing and exacerbating global warming.
You see, the Unitarians don’t much care for all that talk about protecting life. The Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations passed a series of resolutions in the early 1960’s to support “the right to choose contraception and abortion as a legitimate expression of our constitutional rights.”
Never mind the whole “Thou Shall Not Kill” thing. I don’t have the Bible handy but I’ll try to locate the verse that says “Thou Shall Get Solar Panels.”
Note: The ironic part is that they probably have a better chance of succeeding in court than most of the Catholic religious liberty lawsuits.
