NY Const. Art 1, Sec. 3 might as well be toilet paper for the ACLU
The
Salvation Army on Tuesday settled a decade-old lawsuit that charged it
with engaging in religious discrimination by requiring its
government-funded social service employees to reveal their beliefs and
to agree to act in accordance with the Christian gospel.
As part of the settlement, approved by a federal judge in Manhattan, the Salvation Army
will distribute to its New York employees who work in programs that
receive government financing a document stating that they need not
adhere to the group’s religious principles while doing their jobs, nor
may they be asked about their religious beliefs.
The
Salvation Army, which is both an evangelical church and a charitable
organization, will also pay $450,000 to settle claims by two former
employees, Anne Lown and Margaret Geissman, that they were pushed out of
their jobs in retaliation for their objections to the group’s policies.
The
group, which administers millions of dollars in government contracts to
run homeless shelters, soup kitchens, after-school programs and day
care centers in the New York area, did not admit wrongdoing as part of
the settlement.
The
church said in a statement that it welcomed the settlement, and that
the document it is now required to distribute was merely “confirmation
in writing of policies long followed by its Greater New York Division,”
rather than an assertion of anything new.
Ms.
Lown, who is Jewish, recalled on Tuesday that she had been overseeing
the Salvation Army’s children’s services division in New York in 2003
when she was asked to have her employees fill out a form asking about
their church attendance and their ministers’ names. The move coincided
with a reorganization at the Salvation Army to more closely align the
missions of its religious and social services wings.
“I
felt it wasn’t right,” she said. “We were publicly funded, we were
providing services on contract with New York City and State, and they
were really imposing a religious test.”
The
lawsuit, filed in 2004 on behalf of 18 former and current employees,
also charged that the Salvation Army was proselytizing while delivering
services to vulnerable populations, like foster children. Much of the
case was dismissed in 2005, and in 2010, another part of the case was
settled when several state and city agencies agreed to audit the
Salvation Army for two years to make sure it did not cross the
church-state line in its delivery of services.
The
auditing protocol established by the case is now in use with other
faith-based providers, to make sure that they are not proselytizing
during their work with the poor and needy, said Donna Lieberman, the
executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
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Thanks for
the help. The item’s below. I’d be happy to mail you a copy,
if you give me a mailing address.
Claude Solnik
(631) 913-4244
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Island Business News
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LI Confidential > Stop
scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
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