The United States Supreme Court held today (9-0) that the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s application of a state law that exempts certain religious organizations from paying unemployment compensation taxes but denied Catholic Charities as not religious enough violates the First Amendment. The state Supreme Court had said that the schools were not “‘operated primarily for religious purposes’ because they neither engaged in proselytization nor limited their charitable services to Catholics.”
The Court said, “The First Amendment mandates government neutrality between religions and subjects any state-sponsored denominational preference to strict scrutiny. The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s interpretation of [the law at issue] imposes a denominational preference by differentiating between religions based on theological lines.” The Court makes clear that, “decisions about whether to ‘express and inculcate religious doctrine’ while performing charitable work are fundamentally theological choices driven by religious doctrine.” The state should not be engaged in second guessing a religious organization’s way of doing ministry.
This is a great development in our religious liberty jurisprudence that further clarifies the strong First Amendment protections we enjoy under our Constitution. Even though the majority of Americans do not believe this is a problem, the fact is that many states work tirelessly to curtail the rights of religious people and organizations, showing great hostility towards them because of their moral and public policy choices.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered the opinion for the unanimous court. Justices Clarence Thomas and Ketanji Brown Jackson filed concurring opinions.
Justice Thomas wanted to clarify that the Wisconsin Court was wrong, not only in saying that Catholic Charities were primarily secular, and not religious, but also in separating Catholic Charities and its subentities from the broader Catholic Diocese of Superior of which it is part. He writes: “The First Amendment guarantees to religious institutions broad autonomy to conduct their internal affairs and govern themselves. This guarantee, which we have called the ‘church autonomy doctrine,’ provides that a religious institution is not defined by the corporate entities it chooses to form.”
Justice Thoams makes clear that the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of association is robust and must be explicitly protected in the case of religious groups:
As with other voluntary associations, those “who unite themselves to [a religious] body do so with an implied consent to” its internal system of “government, and are bound to submit to it.” Watson, 13 Wall., at 729. And, since “the text of the First Amendment . . . gives special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations,” they must enjoy a greater right to control their own affairs than that enjoyed by other groups.
His other major contribution in this opinion is to put the First Amendment in its proper context as to protecting the church from government intrusion, when for years it has been treated as protecting the state. His understanding of the “separation between church and state” is flawless. He underscores we are talking about “‘two rightful authorities,’ each supreme in its own sphere… This concept has deep roots in the history of Western civilization. Jesus famously said to render ‘unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.’ Matthew 22:21. From antiquity onward, many Christians have interpreted this statement to mean that church and state are distinct, and that each has a legitimate claim to authority within its sphere” (citation omitted).
This understanding would give us a strong and proper view of church autonomy. Justice Thomas goes through the strong historical record also:
According to Madison, man’s “duty towards the Creator . . . is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.” Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785), in 8 Papers of James Madison 295, 299 (R. Rutland, W. Rachal, B. Ripel, & F. Teute eds. 1973). Thus, “Religion is wholly exempt from [Civil Society’s] cognizance.”
These distinctions are important because as the church makes decisions about how to best engage in culture and follow the law, its decisions should not be interpreted as any other business. The Church’s structure, writes Justice Thomas, “is a matter of faith, not mere administrative convenience.” He concludes, “The Wisconsin Supreme Court disregarded this structure of Catholic Charities and its subentities in adjudicating the case below.”
Bottom line:
“The Court correctly holds that Catholic Charities and its subentities have suffered unconstitutional religious discrimination even on the assumption that those entities should be considered in isolation. [But Justice Thomas] would reverse for an additional reason—that the Wisconsin Supreme Court violated the church autonomy doctrine. However incorporated, Catholic Charities and its subentities are, from a religious perspective, a mere arm of the Diocese of Superior. The Wisconsin Supreme Court should have deferred to that understanding, and its failure to do so amounted to an unlawful attempt by the State to redefine the Diocese’s internal governance.”
This decision is yet another great marker of the Thomas Supreme Court Era, which has strengthened religious liberty for generations to come. Let us continue to pray for the Justices as they finish up the term with more important cases like this one.