Live From SRF: Attorneys Erica Coray and Zach Pekelis

Unreasonable

Erica Coray and Zach Pekelis are attorneys working to limit the deleterious impacts from religious accommodations. Their SRF panel “Past, Present and Upcoming Battles Over Health Mandates and Religious Accommodations” examined the law governing religious exemptions from public health requirements and the impact these cases have on the future of religious exceptionalism in law and society.

They talked to Unreasonable about the real-life threats posed by religious accommodations, the cynical use of the term “deeply held religious beliefs” and how courts are meant to assess a plaintiff’s standing, as well as the sincerity, of their religious-based objections. (Think gay wedding cakes, hypothetical websites, postal workers demanding Sunday off and football coaches making 50-yard line public spectacles of their personally held religious beliefs.)

Most timely, we get into the current Supreme Court battle argued by Erin Hawley (a former clerk for Justice Roberts who now works for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a powerful conservative Christian legal group, and the wife of insurrectionist Sen. Josh Hawley ) regarding access of the abortion pill Mifepristone.

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