Case shows nominee’s view on religious freedom
A UMNS Report
By Linda Bloom and Linda Green*
May 28, 2009 | NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS)
President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee could find her way to the
position paved by a 2006 ruling upholding United Methodist policy in a
church-state case.
As politicians and advocates begin to comb every inch of Judge Sonia
Sotomayor’s judicial record, commentators say her opinion that the
United Methodist New York Annual Conference has the right to set
mandatory retirement ages for clergy is an indicator of her support for
religious freedom.
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The Rev. Larry Pickens
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Obama held up the ruling in a background report to the press. Some
observers say the decision could help mute conservative criticism that
she would be an activist judge.
Two other judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
ruled a 70-year-old United Methodist minister could proceed with his
challenge of the denomination’s mandatory retirement age. In her
dissenting opinion, Sotomayor said the federal Age Discrimination
Employment Act does not apply to employment suits brought against
religious institutions by their spiritual leaders.
Sotomayor’s opinion was based on the freedom of religion clause in the
U.S. Constitution, said the Rev. Larry Pickens, an attorney and pastor
of Northbrook United Methodist Church in Illinois. “To rule in any
other way would have been an infringement of the free exercise rights
of the church,” he said.
Pickens believes that, as a Supreme Court justice, Sotomayor would rely
on legal precedent when making decisions about religious issues and the
separation of church and state.
“I see her as someone who would be very consistent with affirming that
bright line between church and state and assuring that the state not
have the ability to influence the role of how churches function,” he
said.
Retirement challenge
The Rev. John Paul Hankins, a pastor with more than 40 years of
experience, was leading the United Methodist congregation in Stony
Brook, N.Y., when forced to retire on July 1, 2003, at the age of 70.
At that time, 70 was the mandatory clergy retirement age. The
retirement age was raised to 72 in 2008.
He filed suit, but Judge Dennis Hurley, Eastern District of New York,
dismissed the age discrimination complaint. Hankins appealed and argued
before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on Jan. 5, 2005. More than a
year later, on Feb. 16, 2006, the court vacated the dismissal and sent
it back to district court.
In her dissenting opinion, Sotomayor said nothing in the Age
Discrimination Employment Act “indicates an intention to extend its
provisions to a religious body’s selection or dismissal of its
ministers.” She called the action to remand the case back to district
court “a wasteful expenditure of judicial resources and an unnecessary
and uninvited burden on the parties.”
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Bishop Ernest Lyght
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The District Court ruled a second time it did not have jurisdiction.
Hankins appealed, and the case is again before the Second Circuit court.
Larry McGaughey, counsel for the New York Conference, told United
Methodist News Service he could not comment on the case until after a
decision was announced. Hankins could not be reached for comment.
West Virginia Bishop Ernest Lyght -- who led the New York Conference
from 1996 to 2004 and was named in the lawsuit – said Hankins was
offered the opportunity to continue in ministry in another appointment,
but not in his current appointment.
“There was nothing a bishop could do to change the mandatory
retirement, and when people retired, I would not reappoint them to the
church from which they were retiring,” Lyght explained.
In the bishop’s opinion, “Sotomayor quite clearly understood the
separation of church and state and the right of religious organizations
to be able to make their own determination with regard to who they
would employ.”
Religious freedom
The White House noted that Sotomayor “has lived the American dream”
when it announced her nomination on May 26. The daughter of Puerto
Rican parents, she would become the Supreme Court’s first Hispanic
justice if affirmed by the U.S. Senate. The 54-year-old grew up in a
Bronx public housing project and attended Catholic schools before
graduating from Princeton and Yale. She had worked as a prosecutor,
corporate litigator and federal district judge before being appointed
to the appeals court.
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Rick Rettberg
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In a U.S. News & World Report blog, Dan Gilgoff said the White
House is spotlighting Sotomayor’s ruling in the United Methodist case
in an attempt to reach out to religious conservatives.
“It’s the kind of church-state separation opinion – protecting the
church from the state, as opposed to the other way around – that will
please religious conservatives,” Gilgoff wrote.
On the Christianity Today Web site, Tobin Grant said Sotomayor’s
rulings in the case and other church-state conflicts “appear to support
the position of many churches, or, at the very least, raise few red
flags.”
But Rick Rettberg, legal counsel for The United Methodist Church, said it is hard to calculate the future opinions of a nominee.
“Anybody that has ever gone to law school knows that predicting how a
Supreme Court justice is going to rule on a given set of issues between
the time they are nominated and the time they actually have to decide a
real case is pure speculation,” he said.
*Bloom and Green are United Methodist News Service news writers.
News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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Resources
Lyght vs. Hankins
The Political Community
Church & Politics: Overview
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