It's common in America for religious organizations, and especially churches, to try to get exemptions from the same laws and regulations which apply to everyone else. In a few cases, this may be reasonable, but it's far more common that religious groups are simply trying to abuse the belief that religion is 'special' and deserves deference.

In God vs. the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law, Marci A. Hamilton writes:

In the 1970s, states began to require that child-care centers be licensed. Three factors were at work: the growing number of mothers entering the workforce, in-depth studies about the importance of early childhood education, and licensing was a condition of receiving government funds. Areas of coverage included child-to-staff minimum ratios, space requirements (i.e., square footage/child), prohibitions on smoking, certain nutritional guidelines, and minimal health and safety requirements, for example, smoke alarms or sprinklers in large facilities.

In recent years, some religious organizations have lobbied to avoid such requirements. Their primary argument — in a nutshell — is that they should not be forced to pay for such requirements, because they are tight on funds and have other priorities for the money. In essence, they are saying that they should be trusted with the health and safety of children, even though they are fighting the laws passed for the intention of protecting children from foreseeable harms.

If churches could argue that adhering to nutritional guidelines or child-to-staff ratios violated tenets of their religion, they would at least have a case — not a case that should be accepted, but it would still qualify as a justified argument. Claiming that they have “other priorities” for the money needed to adhere to these guidelines, however, doesn’t even come close.

What are these “other priorities”? Promoting their religious beliefs, I’m sure — but then again, doesn’t every organization have “other priorities”? Why should these religious priorities be a reason to be exempt from health and safety guidelines, but not the secular priorities of secular child-care centers? This only works if you assume that religion should have a privileged status in society, if you think that government should be deferential to religious groups in a way not done with secular ones.

 

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