{"id":63601,"date":"2017-09-19T15:00:40","date_gmt":"2017-09-19T19:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=63601"},"modified":"2017-09-24T14:52:28","modified_gmt":"2017-09-24T18:52:28","slug":"the-historic-diocese-of-south-carolina-responds-to-the-new-tec-dioceses-motion-on-the-rehearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=63601","title":{"rendered":"The Historic Diocese of South Carolina responds to the New TEC Diocese’s Motion on the Rehearing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today The Episcopal Church (TEC) filed their reply, as requested by the Court, to the motions by the Diocese of South Carolina and 28 parish churches for recusal<\/a> and rehearing<\/a> in the South Carolina Supreme Court, regarding its recent ruling in Appellate Case No. 2015-000622.<\/p>\n

On behalf of the Diocese of South Carolina, Rev. Canon Jim Lewis issued the following statement:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s filing by The Episcopal Church argues in essence, that the Diocese and its parishes waived their right to recusal, by not requesting it earlier, and that the Constitutional issues raised in their motions are negligible or mistaken.\u00a0 The facts in this ruling, as it presently stands however, will not yield to such arguments.\u00a0 Justice Hearn\u2019s bias and conflict of interest is clear to any impartial observer.\u00a0 The Constitutional issues for Freedom of Religion remain.\u00a0 As our petition for rehearing stated: \u201cThese are serious issues for Respondents, Appellants and for all religious organizations in South Carolina. This Court should grant a rehearing.\u201d\u00a0 That continues to be our hope and Constitutional expectation from the Court.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

The Diocese is also providing the following background information and details:<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0In 2012, the Diocese of South Carolina, along with 50 of its congregations voted by an 80% margin to disassociate from The Episcopal Church.\u00a0 In a complicated and sharply divided ruling consisting of five separate opinions, the S.C. Supreme Court appeared to rule on August 2 this year that parishes which had \u201cacceded\u201d to the national church are subject to a trust interest in their property by (TEC).<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0The Constitutional due process requirements of the 14th Amendment are clear.\u00a0 No member of government should make decisions in matters in which they have a vested interest in the outcome.\u00a0 The Justice in this ruling who provided the deciding vote is a member of a TEC parish, Diocese and its national church.\u00a0 Under South Carolina law, that Justice is a legal party to this litigation.\u00a0 The bodies to which this Justice belongs as a member would be the beneficiaries of a nearly $500 million property windfall if this ruling stands.\u00a0 That is a massive conflict of interest.\u00a0 And it is the responsibility of the judge, under the South Carolina Code of Judicial Conduct, to reveal that issue, not for a party in the case to challenge the propriety of their actions.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0The expert affidavit testimonies of Nathan M. Crystal<\/a>, Professor and Adjunct Professor of Ethics at the University of South Carolina and NYU Schools of Law and Lawrence J. Fox,<\/a> Professor of Ethics at Yale University are unanimous in their conclusions.\u00a0 The due process rights of the Diocese of South Carolina have been violated by these actions and the only appropriate response is for this Justice to be recused from further participation in this case and their opinion vacated.\u00a0 As Lawrence Fox observes in his analysis, \u201cThis is not a close case.\u201d\u00a0 The violations of due process here are not subtle.\u00a0 They are profound….<\/p>\n

Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today The Episcopal Church (TEC) filed their reply, as requested by the Court, to the motions by the Diocese of South Carolina and 28 parish churches for recusal and rehearing in the South Carolina Supreme Court, regarding its recent ruling…<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more ›<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,114,437,435,184,441,646],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-south-carolina","category-law-legal-issues","category-ministry-of-the-laity","category-ministry-of-the-ordained","category-parish-ministry","category-stewardship","category-tec-conflicts-south-carolina"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63601"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63605,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63601\/revisions\/63605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}