Marci A. Hamilton > Quotes

“Thomas Jefferson famously said: “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god.” In other words, government has no business interfering with our beliefs, but legitimately protects us from each other.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“Despite its many virtues and its enduring presence, though, a good deal of religious conduct cannot be tolerated by enlightened societies. Herein lies the problem – some religious conduct deserves freedom and some requires limitation. Ridding society of religion is no answer, and therefore we must grapple with religion at its worst and its best.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“Third, the Court has never applied the “least restrictive means” test in a First Amendment free exercise case. RFRA and its progeny do not restore anything, but rather concoct a new, extreme standard (the burden of showing a compelling interest and the least restrictive means) against the government when it defends neutral, generally applicable laws.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“The Supreme Judicial Court of Maine clearly stated that it understood the “enormity” of the harm done to children where sexual abuse is “inflicted in the context of religious activities,” and then provided a rote recitation of the principle that judicial examination of a religious organization's conduct is “wholly forbidden by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“When RLPA was considered in 1999, the ACLU testified against it, because of its impact on anti-discrimination laws. [W]e are no longer part of the coalition supporting RLPA because we could not ignore the potentially severe consequences that RLPA may have on State and local civil rights laws.…We have found that landlords across the country have been using State religious liberty claims to challenge the application of State and local civil rights laws protecting persons against marital status discrimination.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“the U.S. is on the precipice of a permanent shift that threatens to transform the country from a thriving, diverse community of religious believers who share a marketplace and a public square into a collection of separate mini-theocracies, where we are more concerned about the religion of the person sitting next to us than the fact that he or she is a fellow American, where an employee needs to know the religion of a Fortune 500 company's owners to know what the health coverage will be, and where goods are tagged with religious identity.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“The U.S. Department of Justice filed a complaint against Colorado City and Hildale in June 2012, alleging that by acquiescing to the influence of the FLDS Church in the areas of law enforcement, housing, and access to public facilities, and discriminating against non-FLDS residents, the two areas and agencies under their control violated the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, as well as the Fair Housing Act and Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.75 The lawsuit is currently pending.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“Neil E. Edgar and Christy Y. Edgar, the leaders of a small Kansas City church, God's Creation Outreach Ministry, disciplined their nine-year-old son, Brian, by wrapping him in duct tape, only leaving space for his nose. He died by suffocation, as a result of choking on his own vomit.174 Mother, father, and babysitter all received life sentences.175 Further investigation into the storefront church led investigators to bring abuse charges against five more women who abused the ministers’ children and a family friend. At least two of the women pled guilty and received probation.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“The abuses by individual clergy in religious organizations are evil; the persistent cover ups by religious organizations, which empowered clergy pedophiles to get ever more victims, is worse; but the Roman Catholic hierarchy's lobbying against access to justice for all child sex abuse victims is about as cynical as it gets.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“In truth, there is no constitutional right to immunization exemptions. If the unvaccinated numbers continue to grow, states will legitimately have to consider whether even the religious exemption is safe public policy.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“Religious lobbyists have used the “secularism” and “discrimination” arguments to cover their voracious and seemingly insatiable demands to obtain rights to act however they choose. They “need” legislatures to help them, because they are so weak and so discriminated against, or at least that is their shtick.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“While the United States bars FGM within its borders, there is no federal law yet that punishes parents for taking their daughters to their countries of origin for FGM. Bills to deter the transport of girls for FGM have been introduced since 2010, but have not yet passed, which means girls who do not receive an illegal FGM here may still be transported to another country.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“RFRA is evidence of an agenda of one-way accommodation, where the religious believer is the center of the universe and the rest of us are supposed to make way. Each one of us is, on this theory, a self-enclosed universe where our only obligations are to ourselves. It is a recipe for intolerance; self-centered practices; harm to children, women, and the vulnerable; and, ultimately, if permitted to fester, religious war. Do you know why we haven't had a religious civil war yet, like the rest of the world? Because we did not countenance extreme religious liberty until now.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“Three legal regimes make it possible for religious entities to run child-care centers without having to abide by the usual state licensing requirements. First, some states have exempted religious child-care centers from their licensing system altogether. For example, Missouri exempts “[a]ny child-care facility maintained or operated under the exclusive control of a religious organization[,]” so long as the facility receives no state or federal funding.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“The vaccination problem highlights how religious exemptions can spur claims for nonreligious exemptions, and a breakdown in the purposes of the law in the first place. Parents who unfortunately bought into the autism hype around vaccinations and saw that religious parents were obtaining exemptions demanded the same for themselves.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“Nor can one underestimate the lengths to which the Catholic hierarchy went to keep its ugly secrets to itself. One lay Catholic described it as follows: “Their structure and social chemistry is almost identical to the Mafia. There is a deep secrecy and a fierce loyalty to the organization.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“On this reasoning, legislatures could not be trusted to protect religious liberty. But, wait. First, in RFRA, Congress enacted the most far-reaching statute in favor of religious entities in United States history. Second, at the same time, the very religious practice unprotected by the First Amendment in Smith was legislatively accommodated across the country. Third, lawmakers knew religious entities have political power and experience, because their lobbyists meet with them all the time, whether in legislative offices or the ubiquitous prayer breakfasts and annual Red Masses.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“In a decision I dreaded but expected, five Catholic, male Justices held that RFRA trumped any rights the women might have and ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“For example, it is commonplace for the states to impose mandatory reporting requirements on professionals who have regular contact with children and suspect abuse. An obvious category would be clergy. The Catholic Church's bishops, however, invested in lobbying to obtain exemptions for clergy so that they would not have to report child abuse (knowing as it did that many of its priests were in fact abusing children).”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“Second, because of their ignorance, some refused to believe a child who tried to tell them about the abuse. Indeed, in some circumstances, the abused child was beaten by a parent for having the nerve to suggest their beloved clergy would do something so heinous, so abuse piled on top of abuse.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“Under the RFRA of 1993, a religious believer could ignore every law in the country unless it served a “compelling interest,” which is a state interest of surpassing importance, and the law served that end in the “least restrictive” way for this one religious believer. In layman's terms, believers could build a moat around their particular religious beliefs that would deny access to the law.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“For decades (really centuries), the Roman Catholic Church, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and the ultra-Orthodox Jews, among others, have handled reports of clergy abuse as though the public good were not their problem and have insisted on silence as they refused to report the crimes to authorities.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“RFRA introduced an era of extreme religious liberty in the United States that would have been rejected by the Framers, who understood the difference between ordered liberty and licentiousness. We need to return to that distinction, or risk the end of our largely peaceful religiously diverse country.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“(Imagine a world where all religious groups can simply freeze their beliefs and not have to interact with the culture.)”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“This has been a repetitive pattern in the United States, where the Roman Catholic Church, the Jehovah's Witnesses, Orthodox Jews, and other denominations have had evidence that one of their own was a predatory pedophile, yet they responded by ignoring the problem, ultimately endangering thousands of children.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“Legal doctrine has not been the only cause of harm to these children. There has also been a long era, at least since 1950, during which the people of the United States have believed as a general matter that religion is always moral and that it is as innocuous as apple pie. This view was fostered in the latter 20th century by Stephen Carter's widely read book, The Culture of Disbelief. This Pollyanna understanding of religion sold these children short and cannot be sustained in the face of these facts.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“Not all freedom from the law occurs as a result of legislation. Sometimes there is religious “liberty” from the law when prosecutors fail to enforce the law and instead pander to religious leaders, ergo, perceived voting blocs. For decades, prosecutors across the United States knew about the abuse in the Catholic dioceses, but hesitated to prosecute for fear of Catholic backlash.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“The FLDS was in the news in 2008 when Texas authorities raided their Yearning for Zion Ranch, and discovered girls who appeared to be pregnant, records of underage marriages, and a bed in the sanctuary.65 The authorities prosecuted and convicted eleven men, including Warren Jeffs.66 Throughout the proceedings, their lawyers argued that the prosecutions were “anti-religious” and were in violation of their constitutional rights. This is the kind of discourse we, as a culture, have encouraged. It is dangerous when courts listen.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“After being arrested in June 2000, Reardon pleaded guilty of 75 counts of abuse, including rape, of 24 boys, and received up to 50 years in prison for his crimes. The YMCA quickly settled the boys’ claims against it; but the church held out for another year.46 The Boston Archdiocese finally paid $85 million to settle the claims of 552 victims, including Reardon's, in September 2003.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

“The complaint describes the fate of one Deborah Palmer, who was in the commune between 1957 and 1988. At 15, she was given to Roy Blackmore, 57, to be his sixth wife, or “concubine,” in the terms of the complaint, and later to two more husbands. She eventually escaped with her eight children. Given the alleged inbreeding within Bountiful, she is stepmother, sister-in-law, and niece all to the same man, Winston Blackmore. Women are taught to obey the men, or “their souls will burn for all eternity in Hell,” and that their life's purpose is to assist the men in reaching “godhood,” which is attained if the man has many concubines.”
― Marci A. Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty