How’s that for timing. Yesterday I had this piece discussing the Justice Department’s radical position in a religious liberties case before the Supreme Court. Justice Department lawyer Leondra Kruger made arguments in the case so extreme even Justice Elana Kagan appeared to disagree with her. At issue was whether a church can fire an employee for violations of church doctrine. Kruger argued that they could not enforce church policy in the case. Kruger was also unwilling to categorically say that the federal government was prohibited from attacking in court the all male Catholic priesthood. That didn’t interest the government, at this time, she assured us on behalf of the Holder Justice Department.
Today Kruger lost. Religious liberty won, and the Supreme Court unanimously disagreed with Eric Holder’s radical position as articulated by Kruger. Not a single Justice was persuaded by Leondra Kruger. The court ruled unanimously against Kurger and Holder. That’s how radical this Justice Department has become. Read more at Fox.
“Kruger was also unwilling to categorically say that the federal government was not prohibited from attacking in court the all male Catholic priesthood.”
? Given the government’s argument on this case, wouldn’t one expect Kruger to be unwilling to state that the government “was prohibited…” rather than “was not prohibited…”?
Very Good News!
Thank you for posting it.
Interesting.
I skimmed through it and I’m getting two vibes.
First, the Court was very clear the ruling applies to this case, that they are not setting any absolute standard of where the line is drawn, and stating that there may well be grounds and room for an employee to sue.
Second, they beat down rather thoroughly any pretense of the government intervening in matters involving selecting a minister.
It almost seems as if they are suggesting that had the plaintiff gone about things differently in this case they would have allowed the suit to proceed, but because she allowed the group to fire her as a minister she completely cut herself off from any judicial intervention.
OTOH, as it were, I take note of the two concurrences, both of which press the ministerial exemption privilege even further. In particular the second one, by Alito and Kagan (strange bedfellows indeed), takes the time to make the point that many faiths have no formal titles or certification procedures, but that they should be reconized as having the same ministerial exemption despite the lack of formality. Combined with Thomas’ concurrence adding that he felt in considering who gets the exemption, the word of the church involved should be sufficient to establish it, and it looks like the Court was almost holding back on a really major smackdown of government overreach for some reason.
How ya like that, radical leftists at Justice?