WOMEN AS CLERGY:

The status of women in society and religion

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Topics Covered in this essay:

Equal rights for women: an overview:

In colonial days, power in North America was concentrated among white, male, Christian, heterosexual land owners. In many colonies:

Over the centuries, restrictions on women and minorities have been lessened. The United States and Canada have moved with agonizing slowness towards the concept of "liberty and justice for all."  

In recent decades, discrimination against individuals on the basis of race, or gender has been viewed with increasing disgust throughout North America. Societal pressure will probably increase on those religious organizations who are seen to follow racist and sexist policies.

As with so many other instances of social change, the more liberal faith groups  have modified their practices first; they now select clergy on the basis of the individual's intelligence, personality and knowledge - without regard for their gender. However, the most conservative traditions within many religions have not followed suit. They find it difficult to conform to the secular standard, because their sacred texts are interpreted as restricting positions of authority to men. To treat women equally in their churches would ignore the teachings of scripture, as they view it. They feel that their stance is not driven by a desire to oppress women. Rather, they devoutly feel that the Bible does not authorize their denomination to ordain women.

Legality of sexism in religion:

The U.S. and Canada have numerous civil-rights laws at the federal, state/provincial and local level. But most include a clause that allows religious groups to freely discriminate against men or women. The most important U.S. legislation in this area is the Civil rights Act of 1964. It criminalized discrimination in employment on the basis of gender, race, and other grounds. But Section 702 it exempted "religious corporations, associations, or societies with respect to the employment of individuals of a particular religion to perform work connected with the carrying on by such corporations, associations, or societies of their religious activities."  

This exemption was widened in 1972 to allow religious groups to discriminate on the basis of an employee's religion for all activities -- not just in their religiously oriented activity. Thus, a denomination could refuse to ordain women and also refuse to hire women to staff their bookstore. The establishment clause of the First amendment guarantees unusual freedom for religious institutions to discriminate in their selection of employees -- freedom that is not allowed other employees.

There have been many attempts to sue Christian employers on grounds of sexual discrimination; almost all have failed. Of the few that have succeeded, unusual factors were involved:

It would seem that religious organizations can discriminate against its female employees with relative impunity. It is only when:

that they may be required to treat their female employees equally. Churches can continue to deny ordination to women with complete safety from government or court interference.

Numbers of of female clergy in North America: