Magic Words

Did you know that saying certain words have a lot of power?

Just by saying those words allow you to not obey laws.

Just by saying those words can get you vasts sums of money.

The words are… now get ready… they are just six words…  The words are “It is against my religious beliefs.”

University to Pay $400,000 to Professor Punished for Refusing to Use Student’s Preferred Pronouns
National Review via Yahoo News
By Brittany Bernstein
April 17, 2022


Shawnee State University in Ohio has reached a settlement with a professor whom it punished for refusing to use a transgender student’s preferred pronouns, according to a new report.

The university will pay philosophy professor Nick Meriwether $400,000 in damages and attorney fees and will rescind a written warning it issued to Meriwether in June 2018 in response to a biological male student’s complaint that the professor refused to use female pronouns for the student, Fox News reported.

Now here they come get ready…

The professor argued that obliging the student’s requests would violate his own convictions as a Christian. When the professor declined to use female pronouns, the student became belligerent and told Meriwether he would be fired, according to court documents cited by Fox News.

Did you see them?

“… violate his own convictions as a Christian.”

Boom!

That got him out of having to obey the non-discrimination laws and got him $400,000 to boot.

It used to be that if a law was religious neutral you could claim that but that has been changing with the Republicans packing the court.

The law started out innocently enough, it was passed as a result of some indigenous peoples being arrested for taking peyote as part of their religious ceremony. So Congress passed a law allowing for religious practices exemptions and the far-right saw a giant loophole and have been exploiting it ever since.

Meriwether then sued the university, arguing that it violated his “right to free exercise of religion under the First Amendment.”

The settlement comes after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit reversed a district court’s dismissal of the lawsuit in March 2021, allowing the professor’s lawsuit to move forward.

And so the school settled the case out of court and the courts are opening up a giant can of worms. The courts are creating two groups of people, one that has to obey the laws and another that can flaunt the laws with immunity.