Seth Udinski, FISM News
The conservative-dominated Supreme Court stopped an appeal from a Christian college in Massachusetts from being sued by an ex-professor on Monday.
Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts, was seeking to use a “ministerial exemption” to stave off the suit from former professor Margaret DeWeese-Boyd, who publicly supported the LGBTQ movement while she was on staff at the college as an associate professor. She is no longer employed at Gordon.
Reports indicate that DeWeese-Boyd sued the school because of the Gordon’s refusal to grant her a promotion following reports of her public support for the sexual revolution.
Although LGBTQ revolutionaries will praise the high court’s blockage of Gordon’s appeal, proponents of freedom of religion see this as an invasion of the religious rights of a Christian institution. Lawyers for Gordon College argued that the Supreme Court should allow the appeal to stand considering Gordon is protected as a religious organization to make personnel decisions based on religious convictions.
The fact that this happened under a conservative-heavy court came as somewhat of a surprise to supporters of religious freedom.
Reports indicate that the court ruled the way it did due to the fact that DeWeese-Boyd’s role in the college was not considered a specifically “religious education” position for Gordon to be protected under the ministerial exemption. She taught social work at Gordon before her resignation.
Justice Samuel Alito raised a complaint with his colleagues’ decision, saying that the court’s view of “religious education” was too narrow.
That conclusion reflects a troubling and narrow view of religious education. What many faiths conceive of as ‘religious education’ includes much more than instruction in explicitly religious doctrine or theology. I have doubts about the state court’s understanding of religious education and, accordingly, its application of the ministerial exception.