An Argument for Blue Laws

"Blue laws" is the nickname for laws that prevent certain forms of commerce for religious reasons.  In the U.S.A., a common type of blue law is a law that forbids certain commercial or recreational activities on Sundays, but there are a variety of these laws.  Many of these laws were abolished during the mid-to-late twentieth century.  However, they were not abolished because they were deemed unconstitutional but rather because they were unwanted.  So that raises the question of whether the laws should be unwanted or should be brought back.

This article published at vox.com argues that they should be brought back because they improve overall well-being.  Here's a key part of the argument:

[W[hile the very secularly minded may celebrate the end of blue laws, seeing them as a violation of church-state separation, the result of blue law repeals may be distinctly non-progressive. To begin with, the Supreme Court has repeatedly, and fairly recently, ruled that blue laws are constitutional: The state can prohibit commercial activities on certain days, even if the days are selected for apparently religious reasons. The reasoning is that the state may have an interest in people spending social time away from work or commerce in a coordinated way, and it is reasonable for the state to accommodate existing social forms, such as religion.

While this may seem like a back door to the establishment of religion, it’s actually a distinctively progressive view of how the law functions. Implicitly, by approving blue laws, the Supreme Court is admitting the view that the state may implement very specific, apparently arbitrary rules to achieve non-economic, general well-being-related goals like “leisure time for workers."

In other words, blue laws are also a way that the state enshrines a special time for citizens to exercise rights to assembly, religious and secular. Assembly requires that people have time off together, so it doesn’t work to simply mandate that businesses close for any random 24-hour period, because that doesn’t ensure that people have time off together. The state cannot force you to go to church or a community meeting or spend time with loved ones, but it can force your employer to close up shop, raising the odds that you’ll invest in social and civic capital instead of paid labor. 

This compelling interest in togetherness is vital, as it suggests the state may have a valid legal interest in supporting the formation of strong communities and social bonds outside of taxpaying employment.

In short, blue laws can help communities for purely secular reasons in addition to religious reasons, and they do this by enhancing communities' abilities to thrive.

Read the entire article and try to answer a few questions.  What are other examples of blue laws?  What are examples of blue laws that are not religiously based?  Do you think that communities are better off with blue laws?  How convincing is the author of this article?

Managing Religion in the Workplace: A Business-School Perspective

Yesterday, Forbes Magazine published an article about trickiness in handling religious matters in the workplace.

How to handle religion in the workplace is a contentious and litigious issue that many business leaders struggle with. The subject is so third-rail hot that even Harvard Business School has devoted relatively few courses and case studies to it. 

“Religion and business is considered one of the last taboos,” says Senior Lecturer Derek van Bever. “Our students have been asking for it because they see very clearly that they will be in positions of global leadership where they will have to deal with it.” 

To fill that need, van Bever wrote the case study Managing Religion in the Workplace, using two high-profile cases of religious discrimination that were argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in recent years: one about a young Muslim woman who battled Abercrombie & Fitch for rejecting her job application because she wore a hijab for religious reasons; and the second about a baker whose religious beliefs compelled him to refuse to design a cake for a gay couple’s wedding reception.

These two legal cases received substantial attention in the news media, not surprisingly given both reached the U.S. Supreme Court.  Both the Muslim woman and the Christian baker won in the U.S. Supreme Court, though saying they "won" misses the many subtleties.

In the first case, the Supreme Court ruled that Abercrombie mistreated the Muslim woman, but it did not rule that businesses have to agree to all religion-related requests from employees.  The issue is whether the business makes "reasonable accommodation" for the request.  It was deemed that Abercrombie did not in this instance.

In the second case, the Supreme Court ruled that there was inappropriate hostility toward the baker by the state of Colorado's employment commission, but it did not clarify whether or not bakers can refuse service to gay couples.  Confusion remains.

Read the entire article.  What do you think of the court rulings?  What lessons do you learn from these two cases?

Jewish Summer Camp

How do you best transmit your religious values to your children?  According to this Religion News Service article, sending your children to a Jewish summer camp might be one of the best ways to transmit Reform Jewish values.  Specifically, a survey conducted by the Reform Jewish movement:

...found that those who participated in overnight summer camps or immersive weekend-long getaways through the Reform youth movement were far more likely to be engaged in Jewish life in college and beyond and more committed to “doing good.”

Read the article and think about how attending a summer camp or weekend getaway would help in the transmission of religious values.  Do you believe the conclusion that attending a summer camp contributes to the transmission of values?

Note that the survey finds a statistical correlation.  It might be that the face-value interpretation -- namely, that attending a Jewish summer camp contributes to the transmission of Jewish values -- is correct. Yet, there is a second interpretation.  It might instead be that individuals who attend Jewish camps are not your average Reform Jews but are already committed to Jewish values.  So the correlation found in the study might merely reflect the alternative possibility that committed Jews are more likely to attend a Jewish summer camp, and that attending the camp does not actually enhance commitment.

Which interpretation do you think is correct?  Could both be true to a degree?