Our main post today deals with threats to religious liberty. Another religious freedom question is before the Supreme Court, but it seems like a different kind of case: Should the laws against religious discrimination prevent employers from being able to terminate employees who refuse to work on Sundays or other holy days?
A postal worker in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, delivered the mail for seven years. As a devout Mennonite, this did not require him to miss church, since the U.S. Postal Service did not have Sunday deliveries. But recently, you may have noticed, the post office has contracted with Amazon to deliver packages on Sundays. He asked his supervisors to give him shifts that would allow him to go to church, and they did for awhile, but eventually they said he would have to work on Sundays or lose his job.
He chose termination and filed suit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which requires employers to make “accommodations” for the religious observances of their workers. As long as those accommodations do not impose “undue hardship” on the business.
The question to be defined by the court is what constitutes “undue hardship.” The decision in Groff v. DeJoy could require companies to give their religious employees a day off to attend worship services.
What do you think about that? This seems different from the measures in the other post about forcing pro-life Christian doctors to perform abortions and forcing religious student organizations to have non-religious officers. To be sure, I would like everyone to be able to go to church. And yet something about the government forcing private companies to give their workers a certain day off strikes me the wrong way. A business that delivers packages on Sunday is not really discriminating against a Sabbath-observer by not hiring him, it seems to me. It is simply trying to get its job done and needs someone who will perform it. And yet, I sympathize with the letter carrier.
So I’m undecided. I thought I would pose the question to you as our weekend discussion topic. Help me out here!
HT: Steve Bauer
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