\n\tSome people come into this world with a singleness of purpose that leaves an indelible impression on those who follow after. Lee Boothby was one of those
\n\tpeople. In an era when the church he belonged to wasn\u2019t encouraging young people to enter the practice of law, he became a lawyer. At a time when the
\n\tUnited States was itself tentatively exploring the practical meaning of its newly minted civil rights, Lee carved out their boundaries by litigating
\n\tfiercely for religious liberty. Every man, woman, and child in America owes their religious freedom, in some part, to the doggedness with which Lee
\n\trelentlessly advocated for that freedom.<\/p>\n
\n\tBorn Orva Lee Boothby in Bakersfield, California, on March 17, 1933, Lee attended college at Emmanuel Missionary College (present-day Andrews University)
\n\tand received his Juris Doctor in 1957 from Wayne State University in Detroit. He moved to Niles, Michigan, hung out his shingle, and started practicing
\n\tlaw. One of his daughters remembers that at the time there were only four prosecutors in all of Berrien County.<\/p>\n
\n\tScarcer still were Seventh-day Adventist lawyers of any kind. \u201cLee was one of a very few Seventh-day Adventist lawyers when he started,\u201d said Mitchell
\n\tTyner, retired associate general counsel of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. \u201cThe vast majority we had were on the West Coast. Lee got
\n\tinvolved in the fifties and sixties, when the church was very much concerned about labor union membership. We had a lot of members who felt on religious
\n\tgrounds they could not be members of unions. There were a lot more unionized workplaces then, and many of our members were being shut out of those places.\u201d
\n\tIn addition to labor union battles, Seventh-day Adventists also faced employment discrimination because of their observance of Sabbath.<\/p>\n
\n\tWho better than a Seventh-day Adventist lawyer to understand the First Amendment challenges of a Sabbatarian? \u201cLee started representing people with
\n\treligious convictions who were being terminated or otherwise handicapped in the workplace,\u201d says Robert Nixon, retired general counsel of the General
\n\tConference of Seventh-day Adventists. \u201cThe problem at the time was that religious accommodation wasn\u2019t well defined under the federal Civil Rights Act.
\n\tEventually the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) promulgated guidelines, but much of the definition came about through court cases that asked,
\n\t\u2018Is this reasonable accommodation or not?\u2019 And a court would decide. So a corpus of cases helped develop the concept of reasonable accommodation, and Lee
\n\twas a key litigator whose cases helped flesh out the meaning of religious accommodation in the workplace.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tDespite ongoing flare-ups of race-related tension, most of us waste precious little time agonizing over the rights secured for us by the Civil Rights Act
\n\tof 1964 and the subsequent amendment to Title VII, the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972. We know on some level that discrimination based on race,
\n\tcolor, national origin, sex, or religion is wrong and that if we were to experience discrimination on this basis we would have legal recourse. But this was
\n\tnot always the case. Simply having a law was only part of the battle; what lawyers needed to win cases were precedents and because the law was so
\n\tbrand-new, there weren\u2019t any.<\/p>\n
\n\tFor example, section 703(a)(1) of the amended Title VII states that it is unlawful for an employer \u201cto fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any
\n\tindividual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because
\n\tof such individual\u2019s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.\u201d1 The trouble was that one person\u2019s interpretation of that statement might not be the
\n\tsame as another person\u2019s interpretation, and the only way to determine which interpretation was correct in the eyes of the law was to build a body of court
\n\tcases that could be cited when litigating each fresh case of religious discrimination.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cLee was great at that,\u201d remembers Nixon. \u201cHe loved to litigate. He was interested in religious liberty, and he was a natural.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tLee suffered defeats in his defense of Sabbath accommodation, but he also achieved some spectacular victories and set important legal precedents. One of
\n\this milestone cases has been instrumental in obtaining Sabbath accommodation for hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals and continues to be cited. The
\n\tcase, Opuku Boateng v. California, involved a California grain inspector, Kwasi Opuku-Boateng, who worked for the California Department of Food and
\n\tAgriculture. Originally given a position of plant inspector at a border inspection station in Yermo, California, Opuku-Boateng was let go before his first
\n\tshift even started because when he learned he was scheduled to work on Saturdays, he refused because of his religious convictions.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe case was pivotal for several reasons. It was brought against the state of California and so, by inference, a decision in the case would be applicable
\n\tto other states as well. Until this time most cases had been litigated against private employers. Also, the word \u201caccommodation\u201d was a nebulous thing. Over
\n\ttime the U.S. Supreme Court handed down rulings attempting to define what constituted religious discrimination on the part of an employer and clarify the
\n\tduties imposed on them by the Civil Rights Act. The most contested issue in the Opuku-Boateng case was that the state had made virtually no effort to
\n\taccommodate his religious beliefs. The victory, when it finally came, set an important precedent for both litigants whose religious beliefs required
\n\tprotection and employers who needed to know what their obligations were to accommodate those beliefs.<\/p>\n
\n\tThis was a hard-won victory that took 14 years to resolve. In speaking of the trial, Lee said, \u201cAfter a substantial period of time, we did get a trial,
\n\twhich lasted several days. And ultimately, unfortunately, the judge ruled against him [Kwasi Opuku-Boateng], which is not unusual for Sabbatarians. So we
\n\timmediately filed an appeal before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The matter was ultimately brought before three judges in the Ninth Circuit and they
\n\truled in his favor, reversing the trial court judge.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe State of California was shocked and filed a petition for review by the United States Supreme Court, which turned down the appeal, and thus the Ninth
\n\tCircuit decision is good law and held in favor of Kwasi and in favor of the need to accommodate religious beliefs.\u201d2<\/p>\n
\n\tEven cases that didn\u2019t result in complete wins furthered the cause of religious freedom by preventing its opponents from chipping away at the progress that
\n\thad already been made. Nicholas Miller, professor of church history and director of the International Religious Liberty Institute, worked on a case with
\n\tLee in which some Catholic women were concerned that state materials being supplied to Catholic schools in Louisiana were compromising the schools\u2019
\n\treligious identity. The women were worried that in taking down crucifixes and being less overt in religious instruction, the materials were having a
\n\tcorrosive effect on the religious behavior and identity of the schools.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cSeparation of church and state cases were usually brought by more secular organizations, such as the ACLU and People for the American Way,\u201d says Miller.
\n\t\u201cWe did it from religious concerns. This allowed us to give a different kind of message, especially in the media, that it\u2019s not just secularists who think
\n\tseparation of church and state is a good idea, it\u2019s people who care about religion because of the negative effect government involvement has on religion.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe case was technically a victory for the other side, because the court did allow the materials to go to the schools. But the government and opposing
\n\tcounsel were trying to use this case to make dramatic changes in the law that would allow essentially all government aid going to religious schools to be
\n\tacceptable. The court refused to buy that larger argument, so it was, in essence, a case of technically losing the battle but keeping the principles safe
\n\tin the larger war. We were disappointed that we didn\u2019t win, but the other side was disappointed that they really didn\u2019t make the larger case they were
\n\ttrying to make.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThis issue—opposing government aid to religion—was very important to Lee. According to Alan Reinach, executive director of the Church State Council, Lee
\n\twrote briefs before the Supreme Court in no less than 32 cases, and the two that he himself brought and argued both dealt with this issue.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhile Seventh-day Adventists may have originally accounted for a large portion of people facing some of these unique legal problems based on freedom of
\n\tconscience, they were definitely not the only ones, and Lee staunchly represented anyone who faced religious discrimination regardless of their
\n\tdenomination. In addition, as the structure of the Seventh-day Adventist Church organization changed, more and more of its members\u2019 legal work was handled
\n\tin-house by the church\u2019s own legal counsel. This gave Lee more time to broaden his client base and put additional effort into shoring up religious freedom
\n\tin other areas, such as testifying before congressional committees.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI remember testifying with Lee before some congressional committee, probably in the early seventies,\u201d says Nixon. \u201cOften a committee would say, \u2018Prepare a
\n\tpaper, prepare anything you want, but you\u2019ve got five minutes to say it.\u2019 So you\u2019d go there, and they would have four or five people lined up at a table to
\n\tpresent their summaries. Lee always argued for practical accommodations of religious beliefs and practices of real people in the workplace.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tLee had a reputation for being a one-man operation, a sort of Lone Ranger who operated very independently. \u201cHe was really an independent force in a way,\u201d
\n\tremembers Cole Durham, director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University. \u201cHe was very much his own independent
\n\tforce in support of religious freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAt the same time, people who worked with him in the fight for religious freedom saw him as a bridge builder, someone who took pains to understand the
\n\tpositions of others even if he didn\u2019t share their views; he cultivated and built the kinds of relationships that would undergird the cause of religious
\n\tliberty. These skills would prove crucial, because Lee\u2019s passion for religious freedom wasn\u2019t restricted to the United States. With the fall of the iron
\n\tcurtain there was a need to promote and help develop religious freedom in countries in which it had previously been unknown. Lee was very involved overseas
\n\tin the international promotion of religious freedom, primarily in Russia and Ukraine. Americans United for Separation of Church and State—Lee was their
\n\tgeneral counsel for more than 12 years—reported that \u201cduring his career, he visited 36 countries, usually on missions to lobby officials to protect the
\n\tright of conscience.\u201d3<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThere was a particular kind of drama in seeing things open up in Russia and Ukraine that I think was a kind of magnet that attracted a lot of us,\u201d
\n\tremembers Durham. \u201cWe\u2019d grown up with the iron curtain and knowledge of restrictions on religious freedom in the Soviet Union. To see that changing and
\n\trecognize that government officials really needed technical assistance in trying to figure out how to restructure their laws to be more in conformity with
\n\tinternationally recognized freedom notions was a very exciting thing, particularly in the early nineties. Lee had spent a lot of his career working on
\n\treligious freedom issues and to have the opportunity to share that knowledge and experience with people who were opening up to freedom of religion was very
\n\texciting and motivating.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cHis dedication and really personal commitment to be able to attend some of the conferences that were really making a difference in the way people thought
\n\tabout religion laws was significant. I remember the spring and summer of 1997 when the 1997 Russian law [\u201cOn Freedom of Conscience and Religious
\n\tAssociations\u201d] was being pushed through the Duma, I was often on phone calls with him. It was one of the first times for many of us to be directly in touch
\n\twith some reporters on the ground. We\u2019d get Internet messages every morning and would work together to send things back for the arguments or suggestions
\n\tfor how one could oppose some of the more restrictive measures in legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cReligious freedom for him was a universal value which wasn\u2019t just for the United States but for all people around the world,\u201d says John Graz, secretary
\n\tgeneral for the International Religious Liberty Association (IRLA). Lee was a member of the IRLA\u2019s board of experts for many years. He often spoke at legal
\n\tconferences and was almost always on the panel when the topic of religious freedom or separation of church and state came up.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cEverywhere we needed him, or someone invited him, he took a ticket and he went,\u201d says Graz. \u201cHe had a passion for religious freedom, and he also had an
\n\tinternational dimension. He was very involved in the IRLA.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tLee \u201cled or worked as general counsel for several organizations, including Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the International
\n\tCommission of Freedom of Conscience, and the International Academy for Freedom of Religion and Belief.\u201d4 Because he was very versatile and wore several
\n\tcaps, he could go to conferences on his own, for his own association, or the IRLA when they asked him. He was also a staunch advocate for the strict
\n\tseparation of church and state, and he maintained a law practice past retirement age. He continued to advocate for freedom of conscience until his stroke
\n\tin 2013, and passed away a little more than a year later.<\/p>\n
\n\tEulogizing Lee at his memorial service, Reinach said, \u201cHundreds have been able to get their lives back because of legal precedents set by cases that Lee
\n\tBoothby fought and won. . . . Most will never know they owe him a debt of gratitude. He\u2019s a man who made a difference. His work has touched the lives of so
\n\tmany who will not even know the story this side of eternity. Indeed, I think all Americans who enjoy religious freedom owe Lee Boothby thanks for his
\n\tefforts to preserve our freedom. He was a mentor and a friend, and he inspired me to continue fighting for religious freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThere can be no greater testament to your life\u2019s work than that you improved humanity\u2019s lot while alive and inspired others to carry on that work. Lee
\n\tBoothby\u2019s contributions to religious liberty will forever be a monument to his unswerving devotion to the right of each individual to have the freedom to
\n\tpractice their religion as God and conscience convict them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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