Opinion
www.SanTanSun.com
May 3 – 16, 2014
Community commentary
47
Letter to the editor
Mississippi enacts what Arizona Faith leaders support vetoed Trail to End Deportations BY TREVOR R. ORME
Arizona’s Senate Bill 1062, Georgia’s House Bill 1023, Ohio’s House Bill 376 and Mississippi’s Senate Bill 2681 all came in response to the New Mexico Trevor R. Orme. Supreme Court’s Submitted photo ruling in Elane Photography LLC v. Willock just last year. In that case, Elane Photography refused to photograph the Willocks’ same-sex wedding. The Willocks brought suit under a New Mexico human rights statute that prohibits places of public accommodation from refusing service because of sexual orientation. When Elane Photography raised the defense provided in the New Mexico free exercise of religion statute, the court concluded, essentially, that because the government was not a party to the lawsuit, Elane Photography’s free exercise of religion defense was not available. The court concluded as much because the language of the state’s free exercise statute reads that “a government agency shall not restrict a person’s free exercise of religion...” A government agency was not restricting Elane Photography’s free exercise of religion, but a private citizen, Willock. This nuance has and will likely continue to spark state’s propositions to amend their respective free exercise statutes. To date, Gov. Brewer vetoed Arizona’s proposed amendment, Sen. McKoon withdrew Georgia’s Bill, and sponsorrepresentatives removed Ohio’s bill from consideration. Gov. Signs of Mississippi, however, signed Senate Bill 2681 despite the seemingly insurmountable pressure to which three other states buckled. Amendments like those proposed by
Arizona, Georgia, and Ohio or like that enacted by Mississippi allow a free exercise defense whether or not the government is a party to the lawsuit. Mississippi’s amendment, for example, extends the free exercise defense to “action by any person based on state action.” What of the question as to whether a business can have religious beliefs? Elane Photography is a business after all. To this issue, the New Mexico Supreme Court said that it was “an open question.” We will likely have the answer to this question in June, when the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether the federal government via the Health and Human Services Mandate can require Hobby Lobby and other companies to provide contraceptive devices as part of their employer-sponsored health care plan. These companies are opposed to the mandate for religious reasons. Public reaction to any proposed legislation or to courts’ decisions are often uninformed, fail to consider the “other side” and ignore underpinning laws. However, there is something to be said about taking the public temperature and how that may reflect on the larger and oversimplified policy issue—whether the nation is about fairness, liberty, equality of opportunity, and justice or is it about religious freedom. Can it be both? For a more in-depth discussion of Arizona’s Senate Bill 1062 visit https:// drive.google.com/file/d/0B0Z12bS2_ sS7c0VaT1VQdl9WLTA/edit?usp=sharing. You will learn of the facts and policy considerations surrounding Gov. Brewer’s decision. In possession of the facts, you will be able to decide for yourself where you stand on these issues. This is likely not the last time Arizona will entertain an amendment like that of Senate Bill 1062.
Imagine the person you love most being taken from you. Your spouse, your parent, your sibling, shipped off with little warning. Or imagine having grown up in the United States and being deported to a country in which you have no friends or family, no prospects for work. You don’t even speak the language. For scores of people, these scenarios are not imaginary. Every day, about 1,000 people are deported from the United States. Devastated spouses and children, families torn apart by U.S. immigration policy, are left to pick up the pieces. Dozens of people affected by the U.S. deportation policy recently marched the Trail to End Deportations. Their trek began at the Phoenix office of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office and ended at the Eloy Detention Center, drawing attention to the immoral practice of mass deportation. “We walk to Eloy as part of the National Day of Action Against Deportations because we need to make our suffering known, and also our power,” the marchers wrote in a recent statement. “Eloy is known as one of the worst detention centers in the country: Two people committed suicide there in the last year and solitary confinement is a regular punishment for trying to exercise your rights inside.” The marchers added, “We will not wait any longer to reunite our families. We will do everything we can to reunite them, putting our bodies on the line as many times as we need to bring our sons, daughters, husbands, wives home.” As a faith leader, I join the marchers’ call to President Obama: Use the authority of your office to stop mass deportation. The mass deportation system transgresses
Trevor R. Orme Candidate Juris Doctor ‘14 Arizona State University, Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law
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foundational American values. One program, Operation Streamline, rushes dozens of people at a time through deportation proceedings without basic understandings of their rights. When we willingly surrender such important values as due process and justice, can we any longer be called the land of the free? The call for fair treatment and compassion is echoed in the pages of the Bible: “When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself” (Leviticus 19:33-34). This verse was quoted by Jesus, who also taught his followers to love their neighbors as themselves. The message is clear, and comes from our neighbors, our faith traditions and the values on which we built the United States of America: End this broken system that inflicts terrible suffering. It is tearing apart families, orphaning U.S. citizen children and exploiting migrant workers. The time to end the mass deportations is now. Signed, The Rev. Andy Burnette, senior minister, Valley Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Chandler The Rev. Erin Tamayo, PC USA, Grand Canyon Presbytery, Phoenix The Rev. Eric O. Ledermann, University Presbyterian Church, Tempe The Rev. Patti Aurand, senior pastor, Shepherd of the Hills Congregational United Church of Christmas, Phoenix The Rev. James Pennington, senior pastor, First Congregational United Church of Christ, Phoenix
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