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1. "Ministerial exception" interpretation narrowed
Lynette Petruska, a chaplain at the Roman Catholic Gannon University in Erie, Pa., says she was forced out of her job because she was a woman and because she objected to sexual harassment at the school. In 2004, a federal judge threw out her case because Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the First Amendment give great leeway to religious institutions in hiring practices. Repeated court rulings have stayed out of similar employment cases because of what is known as the "ministerial exception."

Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit offered a "a carefully tailored version of the ministerial exception." When the employment issue is "religious belief, religious doctrine, or the internal regulations of a church," then courts have no business entering into the dispute, the judges ruled. But when the dispute is unconnected to those issues, employment discrimination "is simply the exercise of intolerance, not the free exercise of religion that the Constitution protects." The ruling explains further:

When a religious organization fires or demotes a woman on the basis of sex, it may be acting according to religious belief, religious doctrine, or church regulation (consider, for example, the Catholic Church's prohibition of female priests). In such a case, the religious organization would be immune from  a Title VII suit. But a religious institution might also fire a woman because the individuals making the decision are, simply put, sexist. Religious doctrine and internal church regulation play no role in such a decision.

The buzz so far is that since this decision is at odds with other circuit court decisions, it could go to the Supreme Court and thus could have significant effects in the broader world of religious employment.

2. Is Matthew 18 unconstitutional?
The Texas Supreme Court will soon examine whether a Ft. Worth pastor, in attempting to follow Matthew 18's church discipline guidelines, had the right to share the details of a former church member's divorce. But the facts in that case make it rather messy. Now comes another Texas case, where the matter seems a bit more straightforward. Church member "John Doe" said he'd rather quit his church and continue in his "struggles in his walk with Christ" (as the pastor puts it) than go through church discipline, which would mean having his sins made public. But the church's bylaws specifically tell members that they "may not resign from membership in an attempt to avoid such care and correction." Like the case before the Texas Supreme Court, this is definitely worth keeping an eye on.

3. 'Rhythm method' said to prevent implantation
Here's the abstract from an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics:

Some proponents of the pro-life movement argue against morning after pills, IUDs, and contraceptive pills on grounds of a concern for causing embryonic death. What has gone unnoticed, however, is that the pro-life line of argumentation can be extended to the rhythm method of contraception as well. Given certain plausible empirical assumptions, the rhythm method may well be responsible for a much higher number of embryonic deaths than some other contraceptive techniques.

The article is only available to subscribers, but New Scientist summarizes the argument of Luc Bovens, of the London School of Economics, this way: "Because couples are having sex on the fringes of the fertile period, they are more likely to conceive embryos that are incapable of surviving."

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May (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50