John Whitehead's Commentary
Ben Endres Won the Lottery, But His Religious Beliefs Cost Him His Job
Ben Endres' story began on September 14, 1999, when State Police Superintendent Melvin Carraway announced a new lottery selection system that would be used to assign officers to particular duties.
One of the lottery positions consisted of plain-clothes duty at the Blue Chip Casino, a riverboat gambling establishment. Troopers assigned to this duty serve as riverboat agents to investigate criminal activity and ensure that Indiana Gaming Commission rules are being obeyed.
The first lottery drawing occurred in late February, and Ben "won" a position on the riverboat. State Police officials contacted Ben and informed him that his new duties would begin in April. But that's when his problems began.
Ben Endres is a deeply religious man who strongly believes that gambling is sinful. In fact, the Baptist church he attends includes the following statement in its Articles of Faith: "We believe that each member must remain separate from such ungodly practices as ... gambling."
Knowing he could not abandon his beliefs, when Ben learned that his new assignment would involve enforcing gaming regulations, he told his supervisors that he wouldn't be able to accept it.
"I explained my religious convictions and requested a reasonable accommodation of my religious beliefs," says Endres. "In fact, I expressed my willingness to do virtually any job to avoid violating my religious beliefs."
To Ben, casino duty was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, enforcing gambling regulations violated his beliefs. And on the other, as a state employee, he wouldn't be free to share his religious objections with the people he was assigned to cover.
But police officials refused to bend.
They didn't bend when Ben's current and former pastors wrote Superintendent Carraway explaining the beliefs of Ben and his church. And they didn't bend when attorneys for The Rutherford Institute wrote a legal memorandum explaining that employers are required to accommodate their employees' religious beliefs.
In the end, Ben was commanded to report for work on the riverboat casino. And when he didn't, this eight-year veteran of the Indiana State Police force was fired.
Ben, with the assistance of The Rutherford Institute, has appealed to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which will decide whether to take his case. Hopefully, the EEOC will uphold Ben's beliefs and, thus, take a stand for the integrity of employees' religious convictions.
Even if the Commission decides not to take his case, Ben will still be able to bring his own private lawsuit. But it is a tragedy for religious freedom that legal action is needed to solve this dispute in the first place.
If any state agency should be sensitive to the constitutional concerns of its employees, it should be the police force. Every day, they deal with civil liberties questions. Officers must consider the Fourth Amendment before they search a suspect's home or vehicle. They must consider the Fifth Amendment's due process requirements whenever they arrest anyone. They are trained to recognize the civil rights of the citizens they are bound to protect.
But sadly, this constitutional training hasn't been used to deal with Ben Endres. Instead, he's had to endure hostility toward his religious beliefs and a stubborn unwillingness to accommodate his religious convictions.
Ben Endres may have won the lottery. But his hollow victory shows that the Indiana State Police have all the wrong numbers when it comes to religious liberty.
ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at staff@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.
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