American Atheists report asks ‘Is the PNW privileging religion?’ 

American Atheist report asks ‘Is the PNW privileging religion?’

News Story by Emma Maple | FāVS News

For over 20 years, the Washington state legislature has been working to add clergy members to the list of mandatory reporters in the state, diminishing clergy-penitent privilege with the goal of reducing child abuse, neglect and more. 

Many local religious groups view this protection, and a number of other laws surrounding religious figures and institutions, as necessary protections for the free practice of religion. 

However, those who do not share the same view — or do not hold any religious views — often disagree. Instead, they view laws, like those that protect clergy-penitent privilege, as unfairly privileging religion. 

‘Special privileges for relgion’

American Atheists is a national organization that tracks state law and policy surrounding issues that they view are the entanglement of, rather than the separation of, government and religion. Its recent annual State of the Secular States report tracks, among other things, those laws that it interprets as “special privileges for religion.” 

The report analyzes issues such as clergy-penitent privilege, property tax exemptions, religious exemptions from certain rules, judicial standards of review and more, with a non-faith lens. For each of these categories, it lists whether the state has what it views as “positive” or “negative” provisions in place for each category. 

“I think that one of the keys to this report is equalizing the treatment of religion or religious folks across all areas of law,” American Atheist President Nick Fish said. 

Clergy privilege, a hot button topic in this state Legislature session, is one of those issues. Both Idaho and Washington have protections against clergy-penitent privileges, although both Senate Bill 5375 and House Bill 1211 in the Washington state Legislature aim to change that. 

“Someone’s status as a clergy member or status as a religious belief shouldn’t necessarily entitle them to special rights,” Fish said. “We want to make sure that kids are being protected and ongoing crimes are being stopped, especially with these ongoing scandals that are present in religious communities.” 

Other religious exemptions analyzed

Another category the report examines is religious exemptions in a variety of situations, one of them being foster care and adoption. Idaho has an exemption that would allow a religious adoption agency, even one that receives public funds, to turn away LGBTQ+ couples or other groups. 

“This isn’t just about parents who are discriminated against in wanting to adopt or foster,” Fish said. “It’s about the kids themselves.” 

The report also analyzes judicial standards of review. The report interprets the free exercise clause of the First Amendment, which reads “Congress shall make no law … prohibiting the free exercise thereof [of religion],” to mean that the federal government can pass neutral, generally applicable laws, even if they incidentally burden religious exercise. 

In 1993, Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Since then, a number of states have followed suit with RFRAs of their own. 

RFRAs require governments to show that the government action is compelling and the government uses the least restrictive means to achieve that goal, which is a legal standard known as “strict scrutiny.” 

Even if the state hasn’t passed an RFRA of its own, many state Supreme Courts have established judicial precedent that requires state laws to meet strict scrutiny. 

Idaho has a state RFRA. While Washington doesn’t have one, in 1992 the state Supreme Court ruled in First Covenant Church v. City of Seattle that this standard still applies.  

“That’s a really high bar to clear,” Fish said. “It’s ripe for abuse … people will use that reasoning to attack a lot of laws that are generally applicable.” 

Those based in a faith background often have a different view of these issues, however. The Napa Legal Institute is a national organization that fights for laws it views as securing religious liberty, rather than privileging it.  

Its 2024 Faith and Freedom Index stated that statutory RFRAs are “one of the most important religious freedom protections for a faith-based nonprofit,” the Napa Legal Index stated. 

Tax exemptions for property

Those from different faith backgrounds also differ on the necessity of tax exemptions or limited filings for places of worship. 

Both Washington and Idaho are granted tax exemptions for property owned by religious organizations and parsonages or other dwellings provided by clergy. Parsonage exemptions were originally put in place for religious leaders who frequently moved, making it hard for them to cover tax costs and unable to build equity in a home, according to Fish. 

Now, Fish said it is an “avenue for abuse” because megachurch pastors can use it as a loophole to avoid property taxes, even though that was not really the law’s intent. 

Property owned by religious organizations also shouldn’t be given tax exemptions, and those that do are listed as giving these organizations “preferential treatment,” according to the report. 

However, “this is not like a huge area where we’re trying to push,” Fish said. “It’s not having that much of an impact on a third party.” 

Pete Serrano, director and general counsel with the faith-based legal nonprofit Silent Majority Foundation (SMF), said the organization hasn’t weighed in on this issue. 

However, “it’s kind of a tradition, a historical tradition, throughout the United States,” he said. “I don’t know why we would move from that.” 

Napa Legal thinks Washington should do more to offer tax exemptions for religious organizations, such as sales and use tax for purposes and property tax exemptions for a larger subset of religious organizations.

Origin of these laws

The American Atheist report views many of these laws as an attempt to entrench white Christian nationalism by prioritizing their views, rather than truly fighting for religious freedom. 

Christian nationalism views the United States as a nation founded on, and great because of, Christianity, according to PBS. Therefore the ideology believes that the U.S. should continue to be a Christian nation. 

In 2011, a survivalist author James Wesley, Rawles published a blog post encouraging conservative Christians to leave liberal states and move to Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and eastern Oregon and Washington, according to the Religion News Service. Since then, Christian nationalism seems to have grown in these areas, which they call the “American Redoubt.”

“White Christian Nationalism has a kind of center gravity in North Idaho,” according to Josiah Mannion, social and secular activist and Idaho’s state director for American Atheists. 

With entire real estate companies “devoted to bringing radical right evangelical right evangelical Christians into the area,” he said it creates a “defacto separatist state.” 

However, religious culture in Idaho isn’t monolithic, Mannion noted. 

“There are plenty of religious institutions in our area that are pushing back on it, that are part of the fight against Christian nationalism,” he said. 

For many groups, who is “winning” or “losing” the fight is hinged on the legal and legislative actions that are taken in these states — a battle that doesn’t seem to have an end in sight.