People who are committed to religious freedom are generally also committed to protecting the conditions for the cultivation of religious life. Because of the deep linkages between religious belief and practice and religious institutions, it can seem natural and straightforward to move from championing religious freedom to championing religious freedom for religious institutions themselves. Members of the Supreme Court of Canada indicated their readiness to make this move in a 2015 case involving a Catholic secondary school in Quebec. In this article, I challenge the idea that according religious institutions section 2(a) protection in their own right is either a natural or a straightforward consequence of a commitment to collective religious freedom. I describe the intellectual history and characteristics of religious institutionalism and summarize the claims of its principal Canadian proponent. I then outline several ways in which religious institutionalism clashes with our basic constitutional commitments. Finally, I develop several prongs of a feminist response to religious institutionalism. I highlight the normative character of questions about the constitutional status of religious institutions, the gendered nature of the relationship between religious institutions and individual rights-holders, and the organic and dynamic features of religious institutions. I argue that we must approach institutional religious freedom claims cautiously and resist any interpretation of section 2(a) that would entrench and shield from internal resistance a singular, institutional religious voice.

中文翻译：

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宗教制度主义：女权主义的回应

致力于宗教自由的人通常也致力于保护宗教生活的培养条件。由于宗教信仰和实践与宗教机构之间有着深厚的联系，从支持宗教自由转向支持宗教机构本身的宗教自由似乎是自然而直接的。加拿大最高法院的成员在 2015 年涉及魁北克一所天主教中学的案件中表示愿意采取这一举措。在这篇文章中，我质疑这样一种观点，即根据宗教机构第 2(a) 条的规定，保护本身是对集体宗教自由的承诺的自然或直接结果。我描述了宗教制度主义的思想历史和特征，并总结了其主要加拿大支持者的主张。然后，我概述了宗教制度主义与我们的基本宪法承诺发生冲突的几种方式。最后，我提出了女权主义对宗教制度主义的回应的几个方面。我强调宗教机构的宪法地位问题的规范性，宗教机构与个人权利持有者之间关系的性别性质，以及宗教机构的有机和动态特征。我认为，我们必须谨慎对待机构宗教自由的主张，并抵制对第 2(a) 条的任何解释，因为这种解释会巩固和保护单一的机构宗教声音免受内部阻力。