Speech
Oct 14. Resolved: Do U.S. Laws Adequately Protect Religious Rights?
Pro: Alexandria Cardwell & Nathan Franco
Con: Ethan Patrick & Ben Grunberg
Nathan,
So what I’ve done so far is write down some pros and cons I noticed when I was reading the CQ research brief and from here I expect we will get some ideas for our 3 contentions and then we will figure out who's doing what parts of the debate. I outlined the debate order below so we can fill that in as we go. I am using highlighting to differentiate between different points so if there’s a point that can be made in the pro and refuted with a point in the con i highlighted them in the same color so if the other team uses it we will have something to contrast it. This is just a super brief outline without any other sources so we can get an idea of what we are debating and some form of organization idk tho. I also think we will definitely need to use court case examples for this topic and will probably need to do some like definitions or explanations before we go into it as a formality.
CQ Researcher Brief Name: Religious Freedom
● Pro: ○ Critics say by citing religious faith as a reason to refuse to serve people or
recognize their legal rights is a violation of the constitution (1) ○ US District Judge David Bunning found the state was not restricting Davis’
religious activities or beliefs; it was asking her to fulfill her duties as an elected official because her religious convictions cannot excuse her from performing the duties that she took an oath to perform as Rowan County clerk (3)
○ Government is accommodating to religious faith, particularly Christianity (3) ○ Rev. Barry Lynn, head of Americans United for Separation of Church and State,
a nonprofit group based in Washington that works to preserve church-state separation, believes the Supreme Court, the federal government and the states have bent over backward to accommodate religious beliefs particularly those of conservative Christians (4)
○ “I think what’s happening is, majority Christian religions are losing their position of privilege, and we’re shifting to a position of greater religious equality,” says Frederick Gedicks, a law professor at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and an expert on the intersection of law and religion. (5)
○ Many experts in law and religion say Davis’ role, not just as a government employee but as an elected official, meant she had a clear responsibility to follow the nation’s laws. (5)
○ But others say ensuring that all members of the public are legally served at a government office is a compelling state interest. “You can believe anything you want about matters of faith and the existence of God or Gods or no God,” says Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “What you can’t do is expect that your right to practice what you believe always prevails when it comes into conflict with someone else’s legitimate claim to their rights.” Some legal analysts also say that allowing claims such as Davis’ to prevail would violate the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment. “By claiming ‘God's Authority’ as the basis for denying the license - rather than any man made law - Davis effectively established her religion her religion in the Rowan County clerk’s office and imposed on the religious liberty of those who hold other (or no) faith,” wrote Randal John Meyer, a legal associate at the Center for Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington. (6)
○ Texas, Louisiana, and North Carolina have announced they will allow elected officials to opt out of issuing licenses or performing weddings to which they have a religious objection, but will require that other officials be available to perform these duties - an accommodation they say protects the religious liberty of the officials AND the rights of those who wish to be married (6)
○ In a similar case in Gresham, Ore., the state labor commissioner ruled that Sweet Cakes by Melissa, a bakery that refused to cater a same-sex wedding because of the owner’s religious beliefs, had violated a state law barring businesses from discriminating or refusing service based on sexual orientation, age, race, sex, disability or religion. The commissioner ordered the bakery’s owners to pay the couple $135,000 in damages. (7)
○ Oregon, Colorado, and New Mexico among 21 other states with anti-discrimination laws that include sexual orientation. To make exceptions to those laws to accommodate religious belief would set a troubling precedent, says Robert Tutte, a professor of law and religion at George Washington University in Washington D.C., who compares the current debate to earlier civil rights battles over racial equality. “Do we really want a business to say, sorry, for religious reasons, we can’t serve women who aren’t accompanied by men; we cannot serve people of a particular faith?” Tuttle asks. “Public accomodation laws were important achievements of the civil rights era, and to start creating exceptions to them, even if people have deeply held religious beliefs, raises the serious problem of a slippery slope. (7)
○ However, Louise Melling, director of the American Civil liberties Union Center for Liberty in New York City, says a compelling societal interest is at stake. “This isn’t just about cake: this is about equality,” Melling says. “What does it mean if I go into a store and get sent away because of who I am? Everytime I walk into a store from then on I think I’m going to have a different feeling- will I be served, will I be treated fairly?” (7-8)
○ Melling notes that earlier generations cited religion to defend discrimination, including racial and sexual discrimination. Many advocates of slavery and later,
racial segregation quoted the Bible to justify their actions, and some faiths still believe God grants men authority over women, she points out. “If we reject religious exemptions in the context of other models of discriminagion why would we do differently here? Melling asks. (8)
○ Granting business owners a religious right to turn away gay and lesbian couples undercuts the basic premise of the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage, says Melling. “The court is saying, ‘We are going to have a rule that says you are embraced in our society instead of being treated like an outcast.’ This really undermines that notion.” (8)
○ Brigham Young’s Gedicks agrees that “conceptually and legally, if you’re offering services to the public, you should adhere to public values, and same-sex marriage is now legal and a public value.” (8)
○ Public opinion surveys indicate that most Americans are less sympathetic to the claim of religious liberty in such cases. A 2015 poll by the Public Religion Research Institute, a nonpartisan organization in Washington that studies public opinion on religious issues, found that 60 percent of Americans “oppose allowing a small business owner to refuse products or services to gay and lesbian people, even if doing so violates their religious beliefs,” while 34 percent support such a policy. (8)
○ Critics of the ruling believe Congress never intended the act to apply to businesses or to deprive individuals of legal, government-mandated services. It was intended, they say, to protect the individual practice of religion, from government interference. (9)
○ Borchelt counters this would amount to regulating women to a “separate [health care] system. Its not fair, and it probably wouldn't work for a lot of women. “Several of the proposals, she says, would require women to arrange their own contraceptive care and to even bear upfront costs. “The whole reason the birth control mandate was put into place,” she says, “was to help women who couldn’t afford those upfront costs.” (9)
○ Hobby Lobby was willing to provide other contraceptives through its health plan ○ In response to complaints from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana and other
religiously affiliated institutions, the Obama administration offered an accommodation through which these institutions could opt out of paying for contraception by submitting a form that notified the government of their objection. Their health insurance companies would still provide contraceptives to their employees, but the institution would no longer by supporting it. (9)
○ Borchelt disagrees, arguing that the accommodation removes the employer from the process by providing contraceptives. “The insurance company provides it directly to the employee and they [the employee] aren’t paying for it,” she says. “Yes, it's the same insurance company, but the employer has been carved out of the process. If there’s any connection, it's so attenuated and so indirect that to
say the provision of birth control services is a violation of their beliefs is incredible.” (9)
Con:
○ Government actions have gone beyond neutrality in religion to hostility toward it, with some Christians complaining about a “war on Christmas” or government forcing them to compromise their beliefs (3)
○ Muslims have reported a sharp increase in vandalism and threats to mosques, while some commentators, including two of the leading republican presidential candidates, donald trump and ben carson, have disparaged the religion as incompatible with American beliefs (3) - If brought up, we can argue that the voice of 2 is not representative of the entire united states legal system
○ William Burgess, senior staff attorney at the council of American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based gorup that works to educate the public about Islam, says the traditional American vision of religious liberty establishes the right to religious expression but acknowledges limits to that practice. Religious liberty “starts with the freedom to believe whatever you like to believe,” he says. “There’s absolutely freedom of practice. The protection for the actual practices of religion- attendance at services, religious dress - need to be quite strong. But in areas where they impact third parties, religious liberty may need to be limited to make way for other values.” (4)
○ Despite conservative christians’ recent successes in the Supreme Court, many still say government directives threaten religious liberty (4)
○ But defenders of Davis and other public officials say the right of government workers to express their religious beliefs deserves consideration regardless of their position. “Public officials, whether they’re an employee or whether they’re an elected official, don’t lose their constitutional rights when they take office or employment,” says Staver, founder of Liberty counsel, which represented Davis in Federal Court. (5)
○ Stanley Fish, a law professor at Florida international university, said those who say Davis is free to practice her religion in other ways - such as attending church and doing charitable work - ignore that many religions, including Christianity in its traditional interpretation, demand an obedience to their beliefs that does not allow for exceptions. “She cannot cast off the tenets of her religion when they conflict with worldly mandates,” Fish wrote of Davis. She cannot, that is, exercise her religion intermittently, on weekends and sacred holidays, and dance to secular tunes for the rest of time.”(5-6)
○ Kentucky is one of 21 states with a state Religious Freedom Restoration Act, modeled after a 1993 federal law that says the government “should not substantially burden religious exercise without compelling justification.” Kentucky’s act says the government at the state and local levels should seek to make accommodations to faith unless the government has a clear and
compelling interest in infringing on religious expression. The law, Fish noted, does not rule out making religious accommodations for state officials. (6)
○ But critics say these approaches still subject same-sex couples to uncertainty and possible rejection and imply their marriages are of a different or lesser status, when the US government has recognized same-sex marriages as equal under the law. The accommodations tilt the balance toward religion over individual rights, says the Rev. Carolyn Davis, an analyst with the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington think tank.”
○ But Liberty Counsel’s Staver says the photographer and the baker were not discriminating against the couples baked on sexual orientation. They don’t concern themselves with whether their customers are gay or lesbian, he says, and serve whomever comes through their doors. But, he says, participating in a same-sex wedding is different. “They don’t want me to participate in a ceremony that signifies something that directly collides with their deeply held religious convictions,” Staver says. “Thats different from discriminating because someone is gay or lesbian. It’s a really major point that needs to be understood 7
○ Anthony Caso, a law professor at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., which is affiliated with the Christian Church, agrees the photography or bakery business had the right to turn down same-sex weddings. Because the couples could easily procure photography and banking services elsewhere, he says, the injury wasn’t significant enough to provide the compelling government interested required to overcome the Free Exercise of Religion Clause. “If you can make the argument that there’s nobody else to take pictures at your wedding or bake your cake, then, maybe, its different. But this isn’t the case,” Case says. “There’s going to be lots of bakers more willing to bake that cake.” 7
○ White evangelical Christians were the only religious group that expressed majority support for allowing small businesses to refuse to serve gay and lesbian people, according to the poll: Catholics felt most strongly that businesses must provide goods or services to gay or lesbian people. (8)
○ But organizations that back women’s access to contraceptives say the Supreme Court ruling and other accommodations on religious grounds have tilted the balance between religious freedom and individual rights too far towards religion. “We’re really concerned about allowing an individual or corporation’s religious belief to trump the health and welfare and rights of other individuals,” says Gretchen Borchelt, vice president for health and reproductive rights at the National Women’s Law Center (8)
○ But Chapman University’s Caso says the government doesn’t have a compelling justification to force companies to provide insurance that includes all the listed contraceptives, when it could have provided them to women through other means. “There are a lot of ways to provide contraceptives to people.(9)
○ But some religiously affiliated universities and charities, including the Little Sisters of the Poor, have balked at providing any contraceptives to their employees (9)
○ Supporters of such institutions reject the accommodation, saying it leaves them responsible for setting in motion a chain of events that leads to contraception being available through their health care plans. By submitting the form requesting accommodation, they cause something to happen to which they religiously object. (9)
○ Adele Keim: counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a washington based non-profit law firm that works on religious liberty cases and that filed the original lawsuit for the Little Sisters of the poor. In the end, Keim says, the government wants these institutions “to provide something that they believe is morally wrong.” (9)
__= with more evidence we can refute a contention about Christian beliefs being “compromised”
__= find support regarding laws and/or measures taken to protect cultural minorities and we could even turn this use of “incompatible with american beliefs” to refute if they argue christians have to compromise their beliefs
__= I would be shocked if they took this route in terms of their contentions, but either way this is refutable information. The con side has the Religious Freedom Restoration Act but our side has the Establishment Clause from the 1st Amendment.
__= How the laws have accommodated these religious extremists. Then there’s the other issue of how the uncertainty and the accommodations make it so same sex marriage are not treated equally.
__= Its another example of the same point the other blue highlighted point makes but the Pro side of this one finalizes the argument
__= this is a poll of citizens who agree with the laws that have been placed are supported by a majority of the American people and that there’s only one religious group (White evangelical christians) that don’t support which means the laws are in favor of the majority of religions
__= this is a big con that I think we might have to refute, but with Obamacare there was “accommodations” which could be argued as “adequate” to protect religious rights because there’s a way for business owners to not have to give the contraceptives while the receiver still won’t have to pay
__= shows that even Hobby Lobby, the initial spark in overturning the free contraceptives for religious reasons said they would provide other ones for women but highly religious groups refuted it entirely
Notes:
Constitution’s 1st Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The first part supports the Pro side and the second part supports the Con side. (3)
Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 - Prohibits any agency, department, or official of the United States or any State (the government) from substantially burdening a person's exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, except that the government may burden a person's exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person: (1) furthers a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.
^^^ https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/house-bill/1308
2016 Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex marriage is legal across the United States. (5)
2014 Supreme Court case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Inc. : Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), employment-based group health care plans must provide certain types of preventative care, such as FDA-approved contraceptive methods. https://www.oyez.org/cases/2013/13-354
July 8, 2020 LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR SAINTS PETER AND PAUL HOME v. PENNSYLVANIA ET AL. The court ruled in favor of the Little Sisters of the Poor.
“In a 7–2 decision on Wednesday, the Supreme Court upheld a Trump administration rule that greatly broadens a religious exemption to the contraception mandate of the Affordable Care Act. Under Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania, an employer with a “sincerely held religious or moral objection” to providing this coverage may now decline to cover their employees’ contraception. The government estimated at oral arguments that broadening the religious exemption would result in as many as 125,000 women losing their statutorily mandated contraceptive coverage. This was one of two big wins today for religious employers seeking to end-run laws intended to protect workers.
But the Obama administration created a narrow carve-out that allowed houses of worship to opt out of the contraception mandate. A follow-on rule gave religious nonprofits an accommodation that allowed them to opt out of providing contraceptive coverage if they “self-certified,” or gave written notice of, their religious objection, at which point their insurer or the government would pay for the coverage.”
^^^ https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/07/supreme-court-sidelines-women-little-sisters-of-the- poor-v-pennsylvania.html
4 minute Pro Speech 1:
Attention getter:
Thesis: My partner and I advocate yes for the resolved Do US laws adequately protect religious rights?” For these three contentions:
Roadmap:
Contention 1: US laws adequately protect religious rights within the 1st Amendment.
Warrant:
Impact:
Contention 2: The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993
Warrant:
Impact:
Contention 3:
Warrant:
Impact:
4 minute Con Speech 1:
Contention 1:
Warrant:
Impact:
Contention 2:
Warrant:
Impact:
Contention 3:
Warrant:
Impact:
2 minute Crossfire:
Questions???
4 minute Pro Speech Rebuttal 2
4 minute Con Speech Rebuttal 2
4 minute Grand Crossfire
Questions??
Pro Final Focus Speech:
Why we won the debate based on arguments made in the speech
Con Final Focus Speech:
Why they think they won the debate