In a major victory for conservative Christians, the Supreme Court has sided with a Wisconsin Catholic charity after the state’s government had made it excessively difficult for the organization to obtain unemployment tax credits based on its religious affiliation.
For context, the Catholic Charities Bureau, a Wisconsin-based organization that has been active since 1917, was unanimously backed by the Supreme Court after the state of Wisconsin allegedly discriminated against the charity by limiting its access to unemployment tax credits. All nine Supreme Court justices determined that the organization had been the victim of unconstitutional religious discrimination
Representing the Supreme Court in its unanimous decision, Justice Sonia Sotomayor emphasized that Wisconsin had violated the First Amendment, saying, “It is fundamental to our constitutional order that the government maintain ‘neutrality between religion and religion.’ There may be hard calls to make in policing that rule, but this is not one.”
Furthermore, Justice Sotomayor said that Wisconsin had engaged in “textbook denominational discrimination” by acting on “a law that differentiates between religions along theological lines.” The judge added that if the government treats religious groups differently based on theological differences, “it imposes a denominational preference that must satisfy the highest level of judicial scrutiny.”
Adding to Justice Sotomayor’s points while writing separately in the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said that the Wisconsin Supreme Court had “created a Constitutional problem” based on the fact that the state “treats church-affiliated charities that proselytize and serve co-religionists exclusively differently from those that do not.”
Moving on, Justice Jackson said that she believed that the dispute between Wisconsin and the Catholic Charities Bureau “arises out of a dispute about the meaning of the phrase ‘operated primarily for religious purposes,” going on to say, “The Government does not dispute that ‘purposes’ can refer to ends.” Justice Jackson went on to argue that the Catholic Charities Bureau met the legal standards for a tax-exempt institution by “preparing people for religious life and for service to the church.”
In addition, Bishop James Powers of the Diocese of Superior celebrated the court’s ruling and defended the Catholic Charities Bureau in a statement, reportedly saying, “At the heart of Catholic Charities’ ministry is Christ’s call to care for the least of our brothers and sisters, without condition and without exception.”
Continuing, Bishop Powers expressed his gratitude to the Supreme Court justices for defending the rights of a faith-based organization, saying “We’re grateful the court unanimously recognized that improving the human condition by serving the poor is part of our religious exercise and has allowed us to continue serving those in need throughout our diocese and beyond.”
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