Earlier this month, the Democratic-controlled New York legislature quietly passed a bill that would “prohibit employers from discriminating against employees based on the employees’ or dependent’s reproductive health decisions.” On Nov. 8, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the bill into law, even though it has no religious exemptions. This means the new law could essentially force pro-life religious organizations to hire people who disagree with their very purpose — or face consequences.
On Nov. 14, the Alliance Defending Freedom filed a lawsuit on behalf of several pro-life pregnancy centers and a church to hopefully strike down the law, which clearly violates the First Amendment rights of religious people.
For any faith-based organization, their religious beliefs drive their mission and their values and thus extend into the work they do every day. To give an extreme hypothetical, if a pro-life pregnancy center was forced to hire former Planned Parenthood director Cecile Richards, it would most certainly interfere with their mission and, therefore, their free exercise of religion.
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