Hankins v. Lyght and the Unnecessary Intersection of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Ministerial Exception
Hankins v. Lyght and the Unnecessary Intersection of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Ministerial Exception
John LeVangie, 30 W. New Eng. L. Rev. 641 (2008)
In Hankins v. Lyght, the court asked whether the RFRA supplanted the ministerial exception. The court held that the RFRA was Congress’s attempt to codify the area of free exercise law, thus replacing all common law such as the ministerial exception. This result was reached over a vigorous dissent, and a subsequent case by the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit declined to follow this holding. The Hankins dissent and the Seventh Circuit were concerned with the danger that matters traditionally left to churches, such as decisions concerning who should represent them in spreading their faith and religious doctrine, may now be subject to secular review. Thus, the courts disagree over the level of protection afforded by the statute, the scope intended by Congress, and the constitutional questions that arise if the RFRA was intended to supplant the ministerial exception.
Part I of this Note discusses the origins of the RFRA. Particularly, it focuses on the continuous struggle of courts to adequately protect the individual’s religious exercise while providing for society’s interest in enforcing the law. Part II discusses the origins and development of the ministerial exception. Part III discusses the Hankins case and a district court case that applied the RFRA to the traditional ministerial exception scenario. Part IV shows that the RFRA and the ministerial exception do not apply to the same situations because they are focused on different aspects of the free exercise of religion. This will be done by first analyzing the RFRA to determine its scope and applicability. Next, Part IV compares and contrasts the RFRA and the ministerial exception in order to illustrate the differences in the protection granted, the interests protected, and the independent development of each doctrine. This Note demonstrates that the RFRA was not meant to affect the ministerial exception in any way, based on the statutory language and the differences in both the concerns and the underlying theories of the two doctrines. Consequently, this Note concludes that the Hankins court erred in giving the RFRA a broad scope.