Supreme Court rules twice for religious liberty
Rulings cover contraception, employer autonomy
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court gave advocates for religious freedom two victories Wednesday.
The court ruled that employers with religious or moral objections do not have to help provide insurance coverage for contraceptives under the Affordable Care Act, and that religious schools are exempt from most employment discrimination claims, doubling down on the autonomy religious employers enjoy to choose their leaders.
In the first case, the ruling seeks to end a longstanding fight by the Little Sisters of the Poor and other religious groups that wanted no role in providing birth control coverage. It upholds a Trump administration policy allowing for religious and moral exemptions. The decision was written by Associate Justice Clarence Thomas and joined by the court’s other conservatives. Associate Justices Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer agreed with the result but warned the legal fight might not be over. Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.
“For over 150 years, the Little Sisters have engaged in faithful service and sacrifice, motivated by a religious calling to surrender all for the sake of their brother,” Thomas said. “But for the past seven years, they – like many other religious objectors who have participated in the litigation and rulemakings leading up to today’s decision – have had to fight for the ability to continue in their noble work without violating their sincerely held religious beliefs.”
Ginsburg issued a harsh rebuke to the court’s ruling.
“Today, for the first time, the court casts totally aside countervailing rights and interests in its zeal to secure religious rights to the degree,” she said. “This court leaves women workers to fend for themselves, to seek contraceptive coverage from sources other than their employer’s insurer, and, absent another available source of funding, to pay for contraceptive services out of their own pockets.”
In the second case, the court ruled 7-2 regarding two disputes between Catholic schools in California and the teachers they fired. Under a ministerial exception, religious employers are given autonomy over their workers that is not available to other employers. Associate Justice Samuel Alito wrote the court’s majority opinion. Sotomayor and Ginsburg dissented.
“The religious education and formation of students is the very reason for the existence of most private religious schools, and therefore the selection and supervision of the teachers upon whom the schools rely to do this work lie at the core of their mission,” Alito wrote. “Judicial review of the way in which religious schools discharge those responsibilities would undermine the independence of religious institutions in a way that the First Amendment does not tolerate.”
Sotomayor argued that the school’s opinion regarding the teachers’ religious role should not be the final word.
“That simplistic approach has no basis in law and strips thousands of school teachers of their legal protections,” she said.
The first case, which had confounded the justices for several years, represented the latest but not the last challenge to the Affordable Care Act a decade after its passage. The high court has upheld the law twice and will hear a third challenge in the fall – one in which the Trump administration recommended the entire law be struck down.
It was one of three major religious freedom cases heard by the court this term and won by conservatives. In June, the justices ruled that a state cannot deny financial support for religious education if it has decided to provide such support for private secular schools.
The Trump administration has sought to exempt employers with religious or moral objections from the contraceptives mandate, established under the Affordable Care Act.