The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) recently issued several opinions on important topics, including religious freedom, LGBTQ rights and immigration. Since our vision at Tirzah is to cover topics relevant to young women today through a Scriptural lens, we wanted to provide an overview of the relevant cases published lately so you can make informed decisions and are able to participate confidently in conversations on these topics. 

So, here’s what you need to know about recent Supreme Court cases and why these rulings are important: 

Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru (religious freedom & education case)

This case was brought by two elementary school teachers at a Catholic school whose teaching contracts were not renewed. The school cited poor job performance, but one the teachers alleges she was discriminated against because of her age, while the other teacher requested a leave of absence to obtain treatment for breast cancer. 

Back in 2012, in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC, SCOTUS ruled that religious institutions have complete control over the hiring and firing of “ministers.” Under this “ministerial exception,” religious organizations are protected by the Constitution from government interference in the employment of ministers. Basically, this means churches can fire a pastor or discriminate against a preacher based on gender, age, race, sexual orientation, etc. 

In a recent 7-2 opinion, SCOTUS focused on that one word “minister” to build their ruling by essentially expanding the definition of “minister” to teachers at religious schools (even if those teachers spend most of their time teaching secular topics like math and science). In this case, the teachers spent about three hours on religious instruction, but that was enough to classify them as ministers for purposes of the First Amendment protection of religious institutions under the ministerial exception. 

Why does this matter? The scope of the ministerial exception just got more broad. It used to only apply to preachers and pastors in churches, but now, with this case, religious schools (or secular schools with religious affiliations) can bring teachers into this exception. So, for teachers of religion, schools can now technically make hiring and firing decisions based on gender, race, age, sexual orientation, etc without being subject to civil rights laws. 

Conservatives are all for this. Liberals are worried since there does not appear anything to stop this from being applied by other religious institutions like hospitals, camps, and basically anyone working anywhere who performs religious duties. For example, if I’m a receptionist at a church and my duty is to answer the phone and answer spiritual questions, does that qualify me as a “minister” for purposes of the ministerial exception? Based on this case, it appears the answer should be yes. So, look for more cases challenging this in the next couple years as people try to see how broad they can make the application of this exception! 

Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania (birth control and religious freedom case)

Back when Barack Obama was President, Congress passed the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), which required all employer-based health insurance plans to cover federally approved forms of birth control (a.k.a., free access to birth control). 

But, what if I own a Christian company and I don’t believe Christians should use birth control? Can the government make me provide birth control free of charge to my employees through the health care plan I help pay for? Under the general Obamacare rule, yes.

That’s exactly what happened in 2014, when Hobby Lobby went to court on this issue, claiming that for religious purposes, they would not pay for employees’ access to contraceptives as mandated by the Affordable Care Act. Hobby Lobby won and the Obama administration attempted to re-write the rules to get around this ruling. 

When Trump was elected, he tried to make the Hobby Lobby exception even more broad by writing regulations allowing for employers to opt out of birth control coverage on their healthcare plans based on religious beliefs or moral convictions. 

Liberals didn’t like this so they sued, saying the Trump administration did not follow the right procedures for writing the broader exception rules. SCOTUS disagreed and ruled that, to be exempt from this requirement, companies that aren’t publicly traded only need to assert a moral or religious objection to using birth control. 

So, what does this mean? Employers with a religious or moral objection to use of contraceptives don’t have to cover birth control in their employee’s health care plans. 

June Medical Services LLC v. Russo, Interim Secretary, Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (abortion rights case)

A Louisiana law required doctors at clinics that perform captions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. Only two out of five doctors who provide abortions in Louisiana have admitting privileges (one in New Orleans and one in Shreveport). The doctor in Shreveport testified in court that he could not handle the clinic’s abortion workload alone. If this law went into effect, a trial judge concluded that there would only be one available doctor to perform abortions in Louisiana.

So, this went up to the U.S. Supreme Court with the argument this law was placing an “undue burden” on a woman’s constitutional right to choose to have an abortion and thus violates the Constitution. 

For context, back in 2016, SCOTUS struck down a similar Texas law, finding that the admitting privileges requirement was medically unnecessary and that it significantly limited access to abortion. Since then, the makeup of the Supreme Court changed when Trump appointed two conservative justices and so conservatives were hoping that SCOTUS would rule differently this time around. They didn’t. What was surprising: Chief Justice John Roberts was the swing vote again (he’s the conservative Justice who has sided with the liberal side a lot lately). 

In the 2016 Texas case, Justice Roberts dissented (i.e., he sided with the minority and wanted to keep the Texas law limiting abortion access). So, why did he “flip”? Justice Roberts relied on the legal doctrine of stare decisis. Basically, this is a legal concept of precedent: that the courts should rule in a similar way on similar laws. So, although Justice Roberts says he continues to think the Texas case was wrongly decided, he believes it’s important for the court to stand by its prior decisions.

Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue (education and religious liberty case)

This case actually came up as a tax case, although many are framing it as separation of church and state case that touches upon religious freedom. In this case, a Montana program gave taxpayers a dollar for dollar tax credit of up to $150 on every contribution made to a student scholarship organization that helps fund scholarships for in-stars private schools.

The organizations receiving the contributions passed on the financial aid to parents, who decided which private schools their children should attend.  In practice, most of the money went to Christian schools. In 2018, the Montana Supreme Court (the state’s highest court) struck down the entire program saying it violated the Montana constitution by basically having the government indirectly pay tuition at religious schools. 

In other words, a tax credit reduces your tax liability. So, say I owe the IRS $15 in taxes. The government wants to subsidize or incentivize something so they give tax credits. In this case, the gov’t wants more scholarship money available cause education is good, so to encourage me to give, they promise me a $10 tax credit for the $10 I give to a qualifying scholarship fund. This means my tax bill goes down to $5. 

SCOTUS (with Chief Justice Roberts siding this time with the conservatives after being on the liberal side on the three of the major cases published during this term!) reversed the Montana Supreme Court, ruling that programs cannot differentiate between religious and secular private schools because doing so violates the First Amendment freedom of religion clause. 

"A state need not subsidize private education," Roberts wrote in his opinion. "But once a state decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious."

This means that, based on this ruling, other states including Missouri, Idaho and South Dakota can lift restrictions on funding for religious schools and could affect separate bans in Maine and Vermont.

Bostock V. Clayton County, Georgia (LGBTQ rights)

Recently, SCOTUS ruled that the federal law in the United States does not allow someone to be fired for or discriminated against at work for being gay or transgender. This ruling was actually based on two different cases where the Supreme Court was asked to interpret Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act which bans discrimination because of sex. This is the same law that protects women from discrimination at work. 

How did the court get here? Surprisingly, two of the conservative justices (Justice Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice Roberts) joined the court’s liberal justices in a 6-3 ruling that basically said that where the Civil Rights Act of 1964 says you can’t discriminate “because of sex” should be interpreted to include gay and transgender employees. 

In his opinion, Justice Gorsuch acknowledged that Congress likely didn’t intend this result back in 1964 (a.k.a, when Congress wrote the law back then, they likely didn’t think that in 60 years we’d be able to switch genders or legalize gay marriage). Remember, in the United States, Congress writes laws and the court system/judges interpret the law. So, that’s what SCOTUS said they were doing: merely interpreting the law as written, even if it has consequences not intended by the original law writers.

I hope this is a helpful overview of what has been in the headlines lately! I’ve been doing some of these summaries over in my Instagram stories and received a lot of good feedback, so figured I’d share these summaries with y’all on here too. 

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. -James 1:5

The next step for you is, if you haven’t already, get on your knees and into the Word to seek the Scriptural position on these issues. Many Christians are being swayed by political parties and Instagram influencers on the stances to take on these social issues and how to vote. But before we are Democrats or Republicans, we are children of God, for our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ (Phil. 3:20).  Learn what the Bible has to say about these topics and stand firm in the Truth, especially in a world running so fast and so far from God. Times are changing, but our God doesn’t change.

As we live on this earth, we continue to pray for the leaders of the cities and countries we live in (1 Timothy 2:1-2), obey the governing authorities put in place by God (Romans 13:1-7), and give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar by paying our taxes, voting and other civic engagement that is asked of us as citizens of the countries in this world (Matthew 22:17-21).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Yelena is the founder and editor in chief Tirzah. Yelena works as an attorney in tax and in her spare time, she is working on her first book for unmarried twenty-something women in extended waiting seasons and running Tirzah. She has a passion for pointing young women to Christ, and enjoys reading, writing, traveling, and spending time with her family.