ACLJ is Key Contender in Religious Cases
Most lawyers are probably familiar with the ACLU. Far fewer attorneys may have heard of the ACLJ. However, the two civil rights organizations—sometimes fighting together and sometimes on opposing sides—are both key players in ongoing efforts to protect religious rights.
The ACLJ—American Center for Law and Justice—is a leading Christian advocacy group, reports the Chicago Tribune. Among its recent accomplishments, says chief counsel, Jay Sekulow, was a role in persuading a federal court not to dismiss a case brought by a pharmacist against the retailer that suspended him after he refused to sell a customer a contraceptive.
(The ACLU—American Civil Liberties Union—is on the opposite side in the contraceptive issue, it explains in a press release, saying that pharmacists’ religious beliefs should be accommodated, if possible, but that refusing to sell contraceptives is a form of sex discrimination with potentially very serious consequences.)
Although perhaps not yet well-known by those outside the religious rights arena, the ACLJ–and Sekulow–are respected for their abilities by colleagues within the field, even when there is disagreement on specific issues.
“He is, I think, more responsible than any other person for John Roberts being chief justice,” Peter Irons, a civil liberties lawyer and constitutional scholar, tells the Tribune.
“They’re a very, very significant player in constitutional law, particularly regarding the First Amendment,” adds Barry Lynn. As executive director of the nonprofit Americans United for Separation of Church and State, he often disagrees with Sekulow but admires his legal abilities. For instance, Sekulow, Lynn says, “had this very clever idea of using what might be called religious arguments in the past and transforming them into free-speech arguments.”
