Jason Miyares, the MAGA running for re-election as attorney general in Virginia, is leading a multistate effort to overturn a state law in Maryland, which isn’t governed by MAGAs, that he wants you to think picks on conservative Christians.
So much for states’ rights, amirite?
I, for one, can’t wait for the knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing attorney generals in West Virginia and Tennessee to start filing briefs in cases involving Virginia law after Miyares is bounced out of office in a couple of months.
“The First Amendment guarantees every faith the right to define its mission and hire accordingly. Maryland’s scheme forces courts into theological judgments they are ill-equipped to make, and that intrusion threatens the religious liberty of every Virginian and every American,” Miyares said in a statement highlighted in a taxpayer-funded press release sent out by his office on Tuesday.
The words “Maryland’s scheme” are meant to refer to a 2023 Maryland Supreme Court ruling in a case involving the charity Catholic Relief Services holding that a state law prohibiting employment discrimination only applies to employees whose jobs “directly further the core mission of the religious entity.”
That Supreme Court ruling would seem to have been a victory for the anti-LGBTQ+ set, but the MAGAs run on the give us an inch, we want to take a mile principle.
The press release from Miyares’ office claims that the Maryland Supreme Court ruling “forces secular courts – not churches, synagogues, mosques, or temples themselves – to decide what a faith’s ‘core mission’ is and which employees count as essential to it.”
As if that is any of Miyares’ business in Virginia, right?
Our soon-to-be-former AG is raising the issue in an amicus brief filed in a Maryland case supporting the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, which is suing the state over its claim that the Maryland Supreme Court ruling infringes on its First Amendment rights to be able to discriminate against whoever the hell it wants to.
That case references the John Doe v. Catholic Relief Services ruling, which the Seventh-day Adventists say improperly restricts their ability to hire only Seventh-day Adventists for positions within their organizations.
According to the complaint, the Seventh-day Adventists contend that the First Amendment should protect their right to ensure that all employees adhere to and uphold the Seventh-day Adventist faith, regardless of their specific job duties.
The legal claim also makes the argument that Maryland’s legal framework would require secular courts to assess religious doctrine to determine which positions further the religious mission of an organization, which the Seventh-day folks feel would lead to excessive entanglement of church and state.
To that point, we have an April federal court ruling that used the 2023 Maryland Supreme Court decision as its basis for ordering Catholic Relief Services to pay $60,000 to a gay former employee after the charity took health coverage away from the employee’s husband.
The case involving the John Doe, who worked at Catholic Relief Services from 2016 to 2024 in data analysis and middle-management roles, and sued in 2020, was the first to apply the Supreme Court’s “core mission” test of the religious exemption to the anti-discrimination law.
Judge Julie Rubin, a Joe Biden appointee, wrote that Doe “did not directly serve the poor and vulnerable overseas, solicit or secure funding for projects, or possess authority to determine how CRS would pursue its mission through its programs. Nor did Doe manage or supervise any employee with such responsibilities.”
Catholic Relief Services had argued that “the exemption unambiguously exempts all claims for religious, sexual orientation, and gender identity discrimination against religious entities, because all work of every employee is ‘connected with’ the ‘activities’ of their employer.”
“I truly hope that CRS will see this ruling as an opportunity to promote the human dignity of employees in same-sex marriages by providing them the same opportunities and benefits granted to their straight counterparts,” the plaintiff said in a statement after the district court ruling was handed down.
The amicus brief led by Miyares argues that the Maryland Supreme Court ruling in the John Doe v. Catholic Relief Services case violates the religion clauses of the First Amendment, “which together safeguard the autonomy of religious organizations,” according to the press release that you paid for.
“The Free Exercise Clause protects the right of religious groups to shape their own faith and mission, while the Establishment Clause bars government from inserting itself into ecclesiastical matters,” the press release tells us.
Since modern-day Republicans are supposed to be strict adherents of originalism, they should know not to put more into the Constitution than is already there.
The text of the First Amendment related to religion is simple and straightforward:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”
Do you see anything in either of those two clauses giving an employer the right to discriminate?
Neither do I.
“This is bigger than one denomination or one state,” Miyares said, giving away the game. “If Maryland’s interpretation stands, every religious organization across the country is at risk of having its faith redefined by a secular court. That is exactly what the First Amendment was written to prevent.”
He’s setting up his grift for after he loses and is bounced out of politics.
Nice try, but, no, that’s not even remotely “what the First Amendment was written to prevent.”
The First Amendment was written to prevent the establishment of a state religion; and to protect all of our rights to worship, or not, as we see fit.
And that’s it.
You want to do business, you abide by federal employment laws.
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Chris Graham
