Religious Freedom Restoration Act; What Has It Created?

Bethany Garland

Employment Division v. Smith was a case heard in the Supreme Court after 2 members of a Native American Church were fired and denied unemployment services because they tested positive for peyote, which they used in a religious ceremony. As a reaction to that ruling Congress and President Bill Clinton unanimously agreed and signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law in 1993. With all the controversy happening today, such as Hobby Lobby refusing to pay for their employees to use contraceptives or SB 1062 in Arizona, is it time to repeal RFRA? Katha Pollitt, a writer for The Nation thinks so with her article, "Too Much Religious Freedom?" Using pathos, ethos, and logos she clearly states her views and holds nothing back which makes the article seem a little distasteful.

Pollitt ruined her authority on this subject with there sheer obnoxiousness that she uses when writing this article. She doesn't show any respect for any other views then her own and at sometimes belittling the values some readers might hold like when she said, "Two decades later, it’s clear that the main beneficiaries of RFRA are the Christian right and other religious conservatives." (Pollitt, Katha) She didn't use any other sources when writing the article and her motives were never made clear until one of the last sentences where she says, "The Religious Freedom Restoration Act needs to be repealed, but it is hard to see where the political will is going to come from."(Pollitt, Katha) Overall her use of ethos was ineffective and hard to identify.

Coinciding with her inability to establish any authority she uses some facts to back up her beliefs. With every claim she made she cited a lot of different court cases that have been in the resent news. Everything from Hobby Lobby refusing to pay for contraception, "The Supreme Court ruled Monday that certain "closely held" for-profit businesses can cite religious objections in order to opt out of a requirement in ObamaCare to provide free contraceptive coverage for their employees." (foxnews.com) To a nurse, Sara Hellwege, suing a family planning clinic who didn't hire her because she didn't believe in birth control pills."Hellwege is a member of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and told health center staff that she would not be willing to prescribe birth control if she were hired for the job."(huffingtonpost.com) Pollitt even wrote about a law similar to SB 1062 that passed in Mississippi allowing businesses to refuse service to people based on religious beliefs. The whole time insulting every side of these cases she didn't agree with.

Pathos was the one appeal in her argument that she used well, and a lot of. She never held anything back when it came to how she felt about RFRA. With statements like, " In the not so distant future, it's entirely possible that religious freedom will be the only freedom we have left-a condition for which we can blame the Religious Freedom Act of 1993," (Pollitt, Katha) and "RFRA, which required laws infringing on religious convictions to meet the 'strict scrutiny' test, was overkill." She was able to show how passionately she hated RFRA and the reasons behind them..


Works Cited

Pollitt, Katha. "Too Much Religious Freedom?." Nation 299.7/8 (2014): 10-11. Academic Search Premier. Web. 14 Oct. 2014.

"Supreme Court Rules ObamaCare Provision Can't Force Some Employers to Cover Contraception." Fox News 30 June 2014. Fox News. Web. 13 Oct. 2014. <http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06/30/supreme-court-hobby-lobby/>.

Bassett, Laura. "Anti-Contraception Nurse Sues Family Planning Center For Not Hiring Her."HuffPost Politics 21 July 2014. The Huffington Post. Web. 13 Oct. 2014. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/21/anticontraception-nurse-s_n_5606912.html>.