{"id":649,"date":"2022-03-06T20:45:57","date_gmt":"2022-03-07T01:45:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/?page_id=649"},"modified":"2025-05-12T11:10:38","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T15:10:38","slug":"religious-exemptions","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/in-print\/volume-xxii-issue-2-annual-review-2021\/religious-exemptions\/","title":{"rendered":"Religious Exemptions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The First Amendment protects the free exercise of religion, so when religious beliefs conflict with laws prohibiting discrimination based on sex or sexual orientation, courts must balance freedom of religion, association, and speech, with the state\u2019s interest in a more equal society. Organizations are sometimes exempted from anti-discrimination laws on religious grounds, allowing them to fire, exclude, or deny services to women or members of the LGBT community. In 1993, Congress responded to the Supreme Court\u2019s refusal to strike down a law prohibiting the use of Peyote, even for religious purposes, by passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).<sup>1<\/sup> RFRA created a two-prong balancing test: the government must not substantially burden a person\u2019s exercise of religion unless 1) in furtherance of a compelling government interest and 2) it uses the least restrictive means of furthering that interest.<sup>2<\/sup> RFRA does not discuss the ministerial exception, which remains good law, and has been expanded by a 2020 decision in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrisey-Berru.<sup> 3<\/sup> The exception \u201cprecludes application of such legislation to claims concerning the employment relationship between a religious institution and its ministers.\u201d<sup>4 <\/sup><\/p>\n<p>Part II of this article traces the development of religious exemptions through four major cases involving public accommodations laws. Part III reviews the ministerial exception. Part IV explores cases involving private businesses and religions exemptions. Part V and VI discusses religious exemptions to providing healthcare and housing, respectively. Finally, Part VII concludes.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2021\/08\/Religious-Exemptions-2021.pdf\">Keep Reading Religious Exemptions\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The First Amendment protects the free exercise of religion, so when religious beliefs conflict with laws prohibiting discrimination based on sex or sexual orientation, courts must balance freedom of religion, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4294,"featured_media":0,"parent":922,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-649","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4294"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":926,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/649\/revisions\/926"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/gender-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}