Daniel Dalton, 46, a non-profit attorney in Farmington Hills, Mich., says the IRS has taken the position “it’s not going to look at ecclesiastical, doctrinal issues.” He grew up in the Missouri Lutheran Church, which limits women’s roles in leadership positions. “I don’t understand it. I don’t agree with it,” says Dalton. “But that’s a doctrinal issue.”
I understand the difficulties in having the state intervene in worship issues. I believe in a separation of church and state, but I’ve come to the difficult decision that women must use the legal system to restore rights in places of worship, particularly when intimidation is used to enforce unfair rules.
In our protest movement, we haven’t yet won national enforcement of gender equity in mosques. But we reached our youth….
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . ” The Bob Jones case cited had to do with education not religion. By the way, Bob Jones art museum is worth a visit if any of our members get to Greenville, SC.
Did this lady actually read the cases she cites? She completely gets both of them wrong. The Bob Jones case did, indeed, have to do more with education and tax purposes in that if Bob Jones wanted any sort of money from student loans and such, they had to play ball. The Jaycees case has to do with the constitutionality of the law involved and application of it to the Jaycees. I think she needs to do some more research. These have to do with “If you want to take Caesar’s coin, you dance to Caesar’s tune.”
With the glut of cases piling up on understaffed benches across the country, I think the Government isn’t going to get involved in trying to regulate rules of whom sits where in churches and mosques. That’s a rabbit hole I don’t think anyone wants to jump down.