Supreme Court Upholds Church Rights

The U.S. Supreme Court has returned its decision in the lawsuit of Cheryl Perich against Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School.

The Associated Press reports:

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a groundbreaking case, the Supreme Court on Wednesday held for the first time that religious employees of a church cannot sue for employment discrimination.

But the court’s unanimous decision in a case from Michigan did not specify the distinction between a secular employee, who can take advantage of the government’s protection from discrimination and retaliation, and a religious employee, who can’t.

It was, nevertheless, the first time the high court has acknowledged the existence of a “ministerial exception” to anti-discrimination laws — a doctrine developed in lower court rulings. This doctrine says the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion shields churches and their operations from the reach of such protective laws when the issue involves employees of these institutions.

The case came before the court because the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School of Redford, Mich., on behalf of employee Cheryl Perich, over her firing, which happened after she complained of discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Writing the court’s opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts said allowing anti-discrimination lawsuits against religious organizations could end up forcing churches to take religious leaders they no longer want.

“Such action interferes with the internal governance of the church, depriving the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its beliefs,” Roberts said. “By imposing an unwantedminister, the state infringes the Free Exercise Clause, which protects a religious group’s right to shape its own faith and mission through its appointments.”

The court’s decision will make it virtually impossible for ministers to take on their employers for being fired for complaining about issues like sexual harassment, said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United.

“Clergy who are fired for reasons unrelated to matters of theology — no matter how capricious or venal those reasons may be — have just had the courthouse door slammed in their faces,” Lynn said.

But Douglass Laycock, who argued the case for Hosanna-Tabor, called it a “huge win for religious liberty.”

“The court has unanimously confirmed the right of churches to select their own ministers and religious leaders,” he said.

But since this was the first time the high court has ever considered the “ministerial exception,” it would not set hard and fast rules on who can be considered a religious employee of a religious organization, Roberts said.

“We are reluctant … to adopt a rigid formula for deciding when an employee qualifies as a minister,” he said. “It is enough for us to conclude, in this, our first case involving the ministerial exception, that the exception covers Perich, given all the circumstances of her employment.”

Perich was promoted from a temporary lay teacher to a “called” teacher in 2000 by a vote of the church’s congregation and was hired as a commissioned minister. She taught secular classes as well as a religious class four days a week. She also occasionally led chapel service.

She got sick in 2004 but tried to return to work from disability leave despite being diagnosed with narcolepsy. The school said she couldn’t return because they had hired a substitute for that year. They fired her and removed her from the church ministry after she showed up at the school and threatened to sue to get her job back.

Perich complained to the EEOC, which sued the church for violations of the disabilities act.

A federal judge threw out the lawsuit on grounds that Perich fell under the ADA’s ministerial exception, which keeps the government from interfering with church affairs. But the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated her lawsuit, saying Perich’s “primary function was teaching secular subjects” so the ministerial exception didn’t apply.

The federal appeals court’s reasoning was wrong, Roberts said. He said that Perich had been ordained as a minister and the lower court put too much weight on the fact that regular teachers also performed the same religious duties as she did.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also placed too much emphasis on the fact that Perich’s religious duties only took up 45 minutes of her workday, while secular duties consumed the rest, Roberts said.

“The issue before us … is not one that can be resolved by a stopwatch,” he said.

The court’s decision was a narrow one, with Roberts refusing to extend the ministerial exception to other types of lawsuits that religious employees might bring against their employers. “We express no view on whether the exception bars other types of suits, including actions by employees alleging breach of contract or tortious conduct by their religious employers,” Roberts said.

Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote a separate opinion, argued that the exception should be tailored for only an employee “who leads a religious organization, conducts worship services or important religious ceremonies or rituals or serves as a messenger or teacher of its faith.”

But “while a purely secular teacher would not qualify for the ‘ministerial exception,’ the constitutional protection of religious teachers is not somehow diminished when they take on secular functions in addition to their religious ones,” Alito said.

Betrayal of Life & Constitution: The Republican Party’s True Colors

I recently began a series of articles entitled “Pro-Life?:  New Thoughts on the Subject,” in which I address some of the significant problems facing the Christian pro-life movement in America.  I address three specific problems (though these are not the only three) – replacing action with activism, falling into the trap of partisan politics with the Republicans, and (still forthcoming) inconsistency in applying the truth of the sanctity of human life.

In part three of the series, I addressed the issue of the Evangelical alliance with the Republican Party and the blatant failure of that alliance.  The Republican Party has billed itself as “pro-life” but has done nothing to actually address the issue of abortion, with no movement being made to overturn the Roe v. Wade verdict through Constitutional amendment (which would return the issue of abortion to the States) and no improvement made on the Supreme Court, which could reverse itself on the Roe decision of 1973.  In fact, as pointed out in the article, Republican presidents have actually appointed more pro-abortion judges by a count of 6 to 3.

As my research for this series has continued (and preparation for the U.S. History course I teach), I have found that a third avenue exists for overturning Roe v. Wade and that Republican inaction has demonstrated itself in even more inexcusable fashion.

Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution reads:

“The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority; to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls; to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction; to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party; to Controversies between two or more States;  between a State and Citizens of another State; between Citizens of different States, between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof; and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.”

The judicial power of the Supreme Court is quite expansive and extends to federal and inter-state legal matters.  That much is clear in the Constitution.  But, the second paragraph of Article III, Section II reads this way:

“In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.” (Emphasis mine)

In other words, according to Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution, Congress can restrict or make exceptions to the matters over which the Supreme Court has jurisdiction.  And, since the Roe v. Wade decision clearly violated the Constitution – by overstepping the authority of the States (violation of 10^th Amendment) and wrongly claiming the “right to privacy” in the 14^th Amendment – the Congress can and should impose a restriction upon the Supreme Court in relation to the abortion issue, returning it to the jurisdiction of the individual States.

In fact, legislation to do just that was proposed in 2007.  H.R. 300, sponsored by Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and co-sponsored by Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) and Ted Poe (R-TX), was entitled the “We the People Act” and argued that the Supreme Court had overstepped in many areas, including abortion.  Section 2, sub-point 7 of H.R. 300 says, “Supreme Court and lower Federal court decisions striking down local laws on subjects such as religious liberty, sexual orientation, family relations, education, and abortion have wrested from State and local governments issues reserved to the States and the People by the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.”

Not surprisingly, the “We the People Act” was referred to the House Judiciary Committee and, as I am fond of pointing out, committees are where good ideas go to die.  The House Judiciary Committee of the 110^th Congress (2007-2008) was composed of 39 members, 23 of which were Republicans, including Chairman Lamar Smith.  The Act never made it out of committee, never forwarded to the House, and thus never voted upon in the House.

While it is true that the House held a Democratic majority in the 2007-2008 session, the House Judiciary Committee did not and their lack of action in even proposing H.R. 300 to the House for a vote did not even provide the chance for the legislation to come up for a debate.  The Act could have been brought into the public eye and much could have been gained by forcing Democrats to vote on the matter.  But, as I argued in part 3 of my pro-life series, the Republican Party has betrayed its base and demonstrated time and time again that it is pro-life in name only.

For more on this subject, please see the series “Pro-Life?: New Thoughts on the Subject” (three parts available thus far).