[blindlaw] Re the ADA in churches

[Daniel McBride]

Elizabeth:

In principle, I believe your view to be correct.  However, in the instance
being discussed, one's first amendment priveleges can be waived just as any
other.

It is my opinion that any religious institution that accepts federal funds,
for any reason, waives their first amendment privileges; it comes with the
territory of taking the money.

Also, I know that all 501(c)(3) non-profits, including religious
institutions, are subject to having their first amendment privileges
curtailed.  For example, somewhere around 2007, a Methodist church in Los
Angeles had a visiting pastor one weekend that spoke vociferously against
the Iraq war.  For doing so, they had their non-profit status revoked and
were made to pay their previous year's taxes that had been exempted.

Also, a man named Texe Marrs runs a Christian ministry in Austin, Texas
called Power of Prophecy.  Mr. Marrs also has a weekly radio broadcast in
which he discusses politics regularly.  In the early 2000s, he was visited
by the IRS and had his non-profit status revoked and made to pay past exempt
taxes.

So, in some circumstances, your first amendment privileges can be restricted
simply by becoming a 501(c)(3).

There is not a single privilege delineated within the Constitution that
cannot be waived.  Also, forget not, that all of said privileges can be
revoked under the thirteenth amendment.

Dan McBride
Fort Worth, Texas



-----Original Message-----
From: blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Elizabeth Rene
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2012 4:39 PM
To: blindlaw at nfbnet.org
Subject: [blindlaw] Re the ADA in churches

Whether the ADA applies to churches may have to be decided on a case by case
basis.  But the Supreme Court's decision seems to say that the ADA, or any
other employment-related statute, cannot be enforced against churches in
matters between them and their ministers (and here I'm reading "lay and
ordained, volunteer or professional, nuns and monks."  Because judicial
oversight of the relationship between a minister and his or her religious
superiors would violate the First Amendment's separation of church and
state, and would infringe the constitutional rights of religious faith
communities to govern themselves according to their own belief systems.  The
court's decision was based upon the Constitution, and not on the ADA itself.

Anyone needing to know whether the ADA could help them in relation to a
specific church-related situation would need to consult his or her own
attorney to see whether the ADA could apply to the particular facts.

>From where I sit, getting a faith community to adopt the ADA's principles
might be more easily accomplished through education and persuasion than
through enforcement.

Just witness what's happened in churches over the past thirty years or so to
see how change does and does not come about.

Elizabeth



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