HOW are equal rights laws to be applied in non-profit organizations?
HOW are equal rights laws to be applied in non-profit organizations... when all positions are volunteer?
our church has been accused of violating civil rights laws because we did not ordain blacks of African descent to our priesthood, when it is not a paid position. No one is forced to be a member, and blacks WERE members, even knowing that they could not hold the priesthood. I would tink that if they didn't have a legal problem with it, then why do those who are not members of our church, who don't even believe in our priesthood, and wouldn't want it even if they were offered?
Answers:
I don't think there's a legal case at all. If the church were hiring for a job with pay, and the job wasn't much different from any other job a company might hire someone for, there might be a case.
But maybe this will make your church stop and think about its racist policies.
A church can discriminate all they want. It is not illegal.
There is an astronomical difference between you or your church being accused of wrong doing by some government agency in the form of some legal document that needs a lawyer to help you respond to, and statments by ignorant verbal savages that need to be dealt with in a public relations campaign that is appropriate to the nature of the allegations or attacks.
Your church needs to consult with a lawyer to determine your rights under such constitutional concepts as separation of church and state, freedom of religion, etc. since there is often a lot of public confusion both by the people running your church, and outsiders who think your church is in violation of some of the rules of our free society.
Many religions believe that drinking alcohol, using the Lord's name as a swear word, sex outside of marriage, homosexualtiy, other things, are sinful, and do not want people working at the church to be people who engage in such practices, or condone them. However, in the larger world, these are not legitimate reasons to refuse employment, or fire someone. Is there special dispensation in the law to make any exceptions so that a religious organization can choose only to hire people, or accept volunteers, who are believers in that religion or in that religion's beliefs?
The laws and court cases are constantly evolving. You need a lawyer who specializes in this kind of topic to provide a briefing to the church's decision makers.
Sometimes we live and work and pray in a community of people of a particular mixture of ethnic and other backgrounds. When a community is let's say 40% white 40% black 20% other, and there is a work place that is 60% white 30% other 10% black, it might appear that place is discriminating against black, so it needs to be able to prove that what happened was not enough qualified blacks applied for the positions available, otherwise the mere appearance of discrimination can get the work place into legal trouble with the equal opportunity civil rights enforcement government officials.
This means, in this example, that the company needs to keep appropriate records to show these officials that there was no discrimination.
In the case of your church, you MAY need (on lawyer advice) to keep records on who all applied to the position where there is a charge of discrimination, and paperwork proving who passed the relevant tests for priesthood, who did not, and why.
Now race is a sensitive issue.
On the one hand we need to be able to document so as to be able to show that we did not discriminate on the basis of what was documented
race
gender
religion
national origin
etc. etc, etc.
but at the same time, since some people other than you or me do in fact discriminate on that basis, this information on people is to be considered sensitive confidential information in which the records themselves how they are organized is subject to special rules that your paperwork people need to be fully cognizant of
It would be lovely if we did not have to keep records on our people's sensitive information, but it is neccessary to prove we did not discriminate or violate various laws at the time those laws were on the books.
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