July 4, 2023 - Epoch Times
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| Good evening, and right before we dive in, I'd like to quickly mention that with July 4th right around the corner, well, the Epoch Times is having an awesome sale on subscriptions. | |
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| Now, jumping into today's main topic... | |
| In a back-to-back string of rulings that are also just in time for July 4th, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered major victories for religious freedom. | |
| Specifically, in two separate cases, both of them which involved plaintiffs of the Christian faith, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of expanding the level of protections that religious believers enjoy. | |
| Let's go through both cases together. | |
| The first case involved a U.S. postal worker who was pressured to work on Sundays by the USPS, despite the fact that he informed the USPS that Sunday was his religious day of rest. | |
| Now, the postal worker in question here is Mr. | |
| Gerald Groff from Pennsylvania. | |
| And while speaking with Fox News, here's how Gerald explained the situation that he found himself in after the USPS signed a deal with Amazon. | |
| About 2015, I... They told me for the first time that I would have to start delivering on Sundays, and I told them that I just wouldn't be able to do that. | |
| For the first year, they accommodated me by saying that I could work extra shifts, you know, covering on holidays or covering on shorthanded routes by doing a whole route and then coming back and taking a second route if possible. | |
| The second year, my postmaster told me that they weren't going to put up with that this year again, so I better either plan on working on Sundays or find another job. | |
| And so I actually looked at another local post office in Holtwood that was not required to work on Sundays. | |
| And I had transferred over there. | |
| But in doing that, I had to forfeit all my seniority. | |
| That was my best chance at getting promoted to a full-time route where I would be exempt from working on Sundays at all. | |
| And so I moved to Holtwood, starting over again at the bottom of the ladder. | |
| I was exempt from working on Sundays there for a short time. | |
| And then in March 2017, they mandated that everyone in my position would have to start working on Sundays. | |
| And I started to incur Discipline, from that point on, I was called in for eight disciplinary hearings. | |
| I received a one-week suspension, a two-week suspension, and then in the order of discipline for the post office. | |
| The only thing left was to be terminated. | |
| I was concerned about a federal termination on my record, so I went ahead and resigned under duress. | |
| And so, as Gerald mentioned in the video we just watched, even though he made all available attempts to remedy the situation, the USPS was still not having it. | |
| Realistically, the only option they really gave him, by the end at least, was to either work on Sundays or to not work at all. | |
| And as such, Gerald filed a lawsuit against the USPS accusing them of religious discrimination. | |
| Specifically, the lawsuit centered around Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. | |
| And for your reference, among other things, Title VII requires employers to accommodate their employees' religious practices unless doing so would be a quote-unquote undue hardship for the business. | |
| That's exactly what the text of the law says. | |
| However, there was a Supreme Court ruling back in the year 1977 wherein the court actually limited the amount of religious protections that an individual could get under Title VII. Specifically, in the case that was titled Trans World Airlines v. | |
| Hardison, the opinion of the court, which is again in 1977, said that,"...employers could deny religious accommodations to employees when they impose more than a de minimis cost on the business." With the term de minimis being a legal expression, meaning that something is too minor to be meaningful. | |
| Or in other words, it's trivial. | |
| And so because of that earlier Supreme Court ruling, all the way back in the year 1977, businesses have been allowed to, for the past 46 years now, deny people their religious accommodations as long as the business could prove that providing those accommodations would inflict more than a trivial cost to the business. | |
| And so, in practice, this meant that most businesses could deny most religious accommodations. | |
| And so, in this case, Gerald, the postal worker, as well as his legal team, were asking the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit that earlier decision from 1977 and overturn it. | |
| Here's, for instance, what Gerald's lawyer said during oral arguments in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. | |
| The government believes undue hardship arises whenever there is lost efficiency, weekly payment of premium wages, or denial of a co-worker shift preference. | |
| Thus, under the government's test, a diabetic employee could receive snack breaks under the ADA, which is the Americans with Disabilities Act, but not prayer breaks under Title VII, for that might cause lost efficiency. | |
| And as such, the legal team was asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn that earlier de minimis standard, this trivial cost to the business standard, which is exactly what they did. | |
| Because in a shockingly unanimous decision, which is something you don't see too often nowadays coming out of the Supreme Court, the court ruled in favor of Gerald. | |
| And in doing so, they overturned this almost 50-year-old precedent. | |
| Here is part of what the majority opinion said. | |
| And just for your reference, this majority opinion was written by Justice Sam Alito. | |
| Quote, based on a line in this court's decision in the Hardison case, many lower courts have interpreted undue hardship to mean any effort or cost that is more than de minimis. | |
| In this case, however, both parties agree that the de minimis reading of Hardison is a mistake. | |
| With the benefit of thorough briefing and oral argument, we today clarify what Title VII requires. | |
| We think it is enough to say that an employer must show that the burden of granting an accommodation would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business. | |
| What matters more than a favorite synonym for undue hardship, which is the actual text, is that courts must apply the test in a manner that takes into account all relevant factors in the case at hand, including the particular accommodations at issue and their practical impact in light of the nature of circumstances. | |
| size, and operating cost of an employer. | |
| Meaning that all businesses are different, and so this undue burden standard must be determined on a case-by-case basis. | |
| And with that, the U.S. Supreme Court officially threw out the de minimis standard, and instead, they clarify that what's written in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act is the true law of the land. | |
| Meaning that employers must accommodate their employees' religious practices unless doing so would be an actual undue hardship for the business. | |
| Not just a trivial hardship, but rather an undue hardship. | |
| And as such, the court ruled in favor of Gerald, and they sent his case back down to a lower court in order for them to look at the case again from a perspective that's quote, consistent with this new opinion. | |
| However, here is, you can say, the funny thing. | |
| Both parties to the lawsuit, meaning both Gerald as well as the U.S. Postal Service, they both welcomed this decision. | |
| For his part, Gerald released this as a part of a statement following this decision from the U.S. Supreme Court. | |
| I'm delighted that the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed our nation's commitment to providing equal opportunity and fair treatment in the workplace. | |
| More than that, the justices affirmed my decision to trust God by honoring the Lord's Day. | |
| I'm grateful to all those who have expressed their support, especially my family, community, coworkers, and neighbors. | |
| On the flip side, a spokesperson for the USPS released a statement of their own, saying that even with this new ruling in place, they are still confident that they will ultimately win the case against Gerald. | |
| Here is part of what the statement from the USPS said. | |
| Quote, Meaning, in plain English, in plain English, that the | |
| USPS plain English, that the USPS is saying that they believe that even with this that the USPS is saying that they believe that even with this new standard, they will ultimately win, because they claim that they can prove that giving Gerald Basically, they're claiming that they'll be able to meet this new higher threshold. | |
| Now, whether that's really their case or not, well, that'll be up for the courts to decide. | |
| However, setting aside this individual case, the reality is that with this new Supreme Court ruling firmly in place, moving forward, it could make it significantly easier for individual employees across the whole country to secure religious accommodations in their workplace. | |
| And so, that all was the first religious freedom Supreme Court case. | |
| The second case, which is perhaps even more consequential, well, it involved... | |
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| The second case, which is perhaps even more consequential than the first case, involved a Christian website designer out in the state of Colorado who refused to make marriage websites for gay couples. | |
| Now, if that sounds eerily familiar to you, that might be because over in the state of Colorado, there are these activist organizations which go around suing different Christian business owners hoping to get some favorable legal precedents. | |
| And so, you might remember how back in the year 2018, a Christian baker by the name of Jack Phillips was sued by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission Ultimately, five years ago, the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of this Christian baker, saying that forcing him to bake the cake would be a violation of his First Amendment rights to the exercise of free religion. | |
| However, the left-wing activists in the state did not just give up with that ruling. | |
| And you fast-forward five years, and you get to this case here with Ms. | |
| Lori Smith. | |
| Here's what happened. | |
| Quote, Smith has said she will design custom websites for anyone, including those who identify as LGBT, so long as their message does not conflict with her religious views. | |
| This means that she won't promote messages that condone violence or encourage sexual immorality, abortion or same-sex marriage. | |
| When clients want such messages expressed, Smith refers them to other website designers. | |
| Then, in order to avoid harassment, Ms. | |
| Smith wanted to post a notice on her business website explaining what content she was and was not willing to create, in order to clarify her position to prospective clients. | |
| However, she learned that doing this was actually quote-unquote illegal under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act. | |
| Now that particular law, quote, prohibits all public accommodations from denying the full and equal enjoyment of its goods and services to any customer based on his race, creed, disability, sexual orientation, or other statutorily enumerated trade. | |
| The law defines public accommodation broadly, to include almost every public-facing business in the state. | |
| And so, Ms. | |
| Smith filed a lawsuit against the state saying that this Colorado law, which in practice would require her to create websites celebrating same-sex marriages, infringes on her constitutional rights. | |
| At its essence, it's the exact same case as with Jack Phillips, the Christian baker, except this time it was a Christian web designer. | |
| And just like the baker, well, the web designer won. | |
| The Supreme Court ruled 6-3, with the conservative wing, including Justices Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Sam Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett all ruling in favor of Ms. | |
| Smith. | |
| Here is part of what the 26-page majority opinion said. | |
| And just for reference, this majority opinion was written by Justice Neil Gorsuch. | |
| Quote, Prohibits Colorado from forcing a website designer to create expressive designs, speaking messages with which the designer disagrees. | |
| The First Amendment's protections belong to all, not just to speakers whose motives the government finds worthy. | |
| In this case, Colorado seeks to force an individual to speak in ways that align with its views, but defy her conscience about a matter of major significance. | |
| Consistent with the First Amendment, the nation's answer is tolerance, not coercion. | |
| The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands. | |
| And as such, not only does this mean that an artistic business like a bakery or a website studio can refuse to make products that violate their religious convictions, but that also they are allowed to put up signage informing the general public about what they will and will not do. | |
| Essentially, this ruling clarified that the government cannot force Americans to abandon their constitutional rights, as well as their religious convictions, in order for them to be able to operate a business within this country, regardless of what the Colorado Civil Rights Commission says. | |
| If you'd like to read either of these two Supreme Court rulings, I'll throw the PDF versions of them down into the description box below this video for you to check out, which is, of course, that little description box right below those like and subscribe buttons, which I hope you take a moment to smash so that this video and this content can reach ever more people via the YouTube algorithm. | |
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| And then until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epic Times. | |
| Stay informed. |
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