Pastor Protection Act Not Needed And Wrong For Ohio

Testimony giv­en to Ohio Senate com­mit­tee

TOLEDO, November 28, 2018 — Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie (SHoWLE) sub­mit­ted writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ny oppos­ing Ohio House Bill 36, also known as the “Pastor Protection Act”. The bill would repeat 1st amend­ment pro­tec­tion giv­en to faith prac­ti­tion­ers but would also allow reli­gious groups to avoid pub­lic accom­mo­da­tion laws even if a prop­er­ty is used for com­mer­cial pur­pos­es.

“This is a very dan­ger­ous change in our civ­il rights,” SHoWLE President Douglas Berger stat­ed in writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ny sub­mit­ted to the Ohio Senate Judiciary Committee today. “This bill would allow reli­gious groups to dis­crim­i­nate against ANYONE that they feel doesn’t con­form to their reli­gious beliefs. Do we want to see a church food pantry turn­ing away a needy fam­i­ly because they are Mormon, since this par­tic­u­lar church doesn’t believe Mormons are Christians?”

Churches and prop­er­ty owned by reli­gious groups aren’t nor­mal­ly required to fol­low state or fed­er­al pub­lic accom­mo­da­tion laws when used explic­it­ly for reli­gious pur­pos­es. House Bill 36 does­n’t make such a dis­tinc­tion. The bill as writ­ten also would­n’t just affect same-sex cou­ples. A pas­tor per­form­ing wed­dings at the court house for a fee could decide not to sol­em­nize a mar­riage because the cou­ple in ques­tion are mem­bers of the mil­i­tary or a church fel­low­ship hall might require renters to only allow straight peo­ple to attend the event.

“Religious free­dom should be a shield to pro­tect peo­ple from per­se­cu­tion and not a sword to give spe­cial rights to a favored group that ends up per­se­cut­ing peo­ple not in that favored group, ” Berger wrote.

“This bill is a waste of time and tax­pay­er mon­ey for a prob­lem that doesn’t and will nev­er exist. Instead we would like to see the leg­is­la­ture work to make per­form­ing mar­riages more acces­si­ble by con­sid­er­ing and pass­ing Senate Bill 52 that also amends 3101.08 to allow any­one who reg­is­ters with the state to sol­em­nize a mar­riage.”

A pas­tor or priest will nev­er be forced to per­form a cer­e­mo­ny that does­n’t con­form to their deeply held reli­gious beliefs but HB 36 is being used to dis­crim­i­nate against those who don’t con­form to the favored reli­gion — name­ly LGBTQ peo­ple but the vague­ness of the law will allow all kinds of dis­crim­i­na­tion — with the force of the state.

The Ohio Senate Judiciary Committee is meet­ing this week and the hear­ing for oppo­nents of the bill is Thursday with a pos­si­ble com­mit­tee vote fol­low­ing.

“It’s say­ing some­thing when the major­i­ty par­ty is rush­ing to pro­tect pas­tors and priests from some­thing that will nev­er hap­pen while they con­tin­ue to ignore help­ing the vic­tims of cler­gy abuse,” Berger said.

While SHoWLE does­n’t believe a pas­tor or priest should be forced to do some­thing that vio­lates the 1st amend­ment, reli­gious groups should­n’t be allowed to arbi­trar­i­ly dis­crim­i­nate in the use of prop­er­ty it owns not being used for strict­ly reli­gious pur­pos­es.

Link to the  full writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ny

About SHoWLE

The mis­sion of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie is to pro­vide a sup­port­ive local com­mu­ni­ty for human­ists and oth­er non­the­ists, while pro­mot­ing an eth­i­cal, rea­son­able, and sec­u­lar approach to life through edu­ca­tion, com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, out­reach, activism, and social events.

SHoWLE meets on the 2nd Saturday of each month and all gen­er­al meet­ings are free and open to the pub­lic. The web­site is humanistswle.org

Media Contacts

Douglas Berger — President
567–302-0209

Shawn Meagley — co-Founder
419–266-7945

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