Any time the government chooses to define what constitutes religion you’re going to have a problem. And that is so once again with the strange case of a federal appeals bench consideration as to whether a Wiccan religious leader can have his day in court to pursue a religious discrimination case. The case, McCollum vs. California, is being heard by the Florida-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. 

The clergy member has said that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is violating constitutional rights by limiting paid clergy positions to members of five religions, not including his faith. A court denied him the right to bring the lawsuit on the grounds that he was not the correct party to do so.

Now I’m not so keen on Wiccans as a religion. In fact, I’m not even quite sure what makes a religion, which is why I certainly don’t want the government doing so.

Nonetheless, as the Anti-Defamation League Civil Rights Director Deborah M. Lauter (an old friend my Atlanta days in the late great 1990s) has declared, “At a minimum, the plaintiff in this case deserves his day in court to challenge a discriminatory practice. He applied for a job and was told that, because of an exclusionary California policy, he was ineligible.”

She’s absolutely right. If the government is going to get involved in such messy definitions, it cannot back down from defining its terms.

Going forward with the case would force the government to define religion, which it should not be in a position to do. The only way to get around that is to not have the government be in such a position. Rather, if there are religious duties that need to be fulfilled – say counseling to those incarcerated or, better yet, those in our military – it should best be left to those who want such services to define the clergy they desire. There are ways to write statues to reflect that, which would reduce social tensions over an issue that will do more for attorneys and comment writers than help our nation move forward.

I agree.  There is far to little prayer in the world today.  Everyone should have the right of religion and prayer.