Religious Liberty Case to Keep and Eye On

The SCOTUS will be reviewing an employment case that focuses on the question of whether state law enforcement agencies are exempt from having to comply with the religious accommodation provisions of Title VII (a.k.a. the Federal Civil Rights Act).

The Indiana State Police in South Bend assigned Benjamin Endres Jr. as a full-time gaming commission agent at the Blue Chips Casino in Michigan City, Ind. His job description listed gambling-related responsibilities, such as verifying gambling profits, investigating public complaints about the gaming system and performing license investigations for the casinos and their employees.

Endres claimed these duties would force him to violate his Baptist beliefs, which bar him from participating in or facilitating gambling. Endres asked his employer to reassign him. His request was denied, and when Endres failed to report to work he was fired.

After Endres filed a suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, the police agency sought to have the case dismissed, arguing that Indiana officials were protected from the Title VII claim by the state's sovereign immunity. But in December 2001, U.S. District Judge Robert Miller Jr. ruled against the state, saying that Endres could go ahead with his Title VII claim.

On appeal, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals saw the case differently. In an opinion last year by Judge Frank Easterbrook, the 7th Circuit reversed Miller, ruling that Endres had not made a valid Title VII claim. Judges Richard Posner and William Bauer joined in the opinion, which did not touch on the state immunity question.

Easterbrook said the law could not be interpreted to allow police or firefighters to pick and choose which laws to enforce or which fires to extinguish. Noting religious preferences such as Catholics' opposition to abortions and Jewish and Muslim bans on eating pork, Easterbrook asked rhetorically whether the law requires the state police "to assign Unitarians to guard the abortion clinic, Catholics to prevent thefts from liquor stores, and Baptists to investigate claims that supermarkets misweigh bacon and shellfish?"

Easterbrook continued: "Juggling assignments to make each compatible with the varying religious beliefs of a heterogeneous police force would be daunting to managers and difficult for other officers who would be called on to fill in for the objectors."

OK, I've never read the full decision by the 7th Circuit, but the quoted comments by Easterbrook are incredibly asinine if only because he ignores that part of Title VII which states that employers do not have to accommodate the religious beliefs of an employee if doing so would impose an "undue hardship" on them (the employers). Certainly, not having enough people to put out a fire would give rise to an undue hardship, but for Easterbrook to effectively compare firefighting to something like verifying the gambling profits of a casino is out there, and seems to be reflective of a personal hostility to people of religious faith.

Update: The SCOTUS has declined to review the case. Speculation is that the Court has "religion fatigue."