Should a supermarket be permitted to have a kosher section?

Should a church be permitted to arrange deals with local businesses to offer discounted services to its members?

Should a national religious organization be able to create its own insurance company whose sole purpose is to insure its churches?

“FaithGuard is more like being able insure your car if you are Catholic but not if you are an atheist.” Except it’s only insurance against church-related incidents. It is impossible, or at least pointless, to insure your car against church-related incidents if you are an atheist.

These are examples of a common insurance marketing arrangement which discriminate in favor of some kind of membership.

In addition, every state has potentially scores of (if not over one-hundred) insurers willing to sell home and liability insurance. Further, most are willing to sell to anyone. It’s a free market out there so it does not really matter if a customer won’t qualify due to some sort of affiliation as there is another company ready and willing to supply coverage!

The insurance company is not discriminating. They are offering a product. It is no different from offering “kosher” food. You not being Jewish does not in any way make the selling of kosher food discriminatory against you.

This is the same. It is a product you don’t want. So… don’t buy it.

Actually, you even COULD buy it, if you wanted. It would be a waste of your money, but you could, just as I could buy kosher food (as it happens, that would only be a waste of SOME of my money, as I could still eat it, but it would cost more than similar food that was not kosher, so that difference would be the waste).

“If you don’t have a car, can you buy car insurance? Think of this as “church insurance”.”

Here your analogy falls down. FaithGuard is more like being able insure your car if you are Catholic but not if you are an atheist.

No, it’s more like being able to buy car insurance but not motorcycle insurance (or vice versa)… sure, they seem functionally the same, but the underlying facts and costs may well be noticeably different. Insurance companies study this stuff quite carefully before they offer such policies, making sure they charge enough to cover expected losses. If they have not yet studied, for instance, the Masons, they would be quite foolish to insure against them.

If there are enough Masons, etc, who they think might want such a service to justify the costs of the studies, I would expect to see similar coverage for Masons, etc, in the future.

Also, “what counts as a religion” is spelled out in advance in writing (insurance is always VERY VERY VERY specific), so if your group is not covered, don’t buy it… just like not buying kosher food if you’re not Jewish (or not buying pork if you’re Muslim).

Tis true. Religions are often discriminatory. Interfaith marriages are not allowed in Catholic churches or in Israel, for instance. I’m not sure quite what to think about that. Is it bigotry?

“If you don’t have a car, can you buy car insurance? Think of this as “church insurance”.”

Here your analogy falls down. FaithGuard is more like being able insure your car if you are Catholic but not if you are an atheist. That is, FaithGuard will not provide functionally identical insurance to relating to secular organizations. So **approved** religious members but not Masons.

Do you really want an insurance company deciding whether your religion qualifies **as a religion** and denying you insurance if they don’t like your church, temple, mosque, meeting house? I know I don’t. I’m not comfortable having an insurance company make religious determinations and I don’t think it is legal if the insurance relates to housing.

I know a temple that will not allow you to become a member (which you pay for, and which requires them to provide you services) unless you were born Jewish (to a sect they accept!) or convert according to their specifications.

If you don’t have a car, can you buy car insurance? Think of this as “church insurance”.

That is a narrower version of what FaithGuard is, insurance only available to religious organizations that FaithGuard approves of–and yes, they will be deciding who’s religion counts since there is no one way to determine what is or isn’t a religion since the definition varies depending on circumstances, say for Federal tax purposes (where even long established religions don’t count if they also advocate for individual politicians) or for purposes of marrying people (where the state decides what counts), for conscientious objector status, etc. And those are just some examples of where government recognizes religions but doesn’t necessarily say an organization is or isn’t a “religion,” just whether it counts for certain government purposes.

No one is preventing anyone from buying the coverage, scote. Discrination would be not selling to someone because of their beliefs. Making or selling a product that a consumer may not use or want is not discriminatory in the least.

To take your thought further, let’s sue Ford dealerships for not carrying Chevrolet parts. That is the same thought process here.