By Katelynn Richardson
The Supreme Court unanimously sided Thursday with Catholic Charities, holding Wisconsin’s denial of a religious tax exemption violates the First Amendment.
The justices reversed a Wisconsin Supreme Court opinion that found the Catholic Charities Bureau, an arm of the Diocese of Superior in Wisconsin, did not qualify for the state’s employment tax exemption because it was not “operated primarily for religious purposes.”
“It is fundamental to our constitutional order that the government maintain ‘neutrality between religion and religion,’” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the unanimous ruling. “There may be hard calls to make in policing that rule, but this is not one. When the government distinguishes among religions based on theological differences in their provision of services, it imposes a denominational preference that must satisfy the highest level of judicial scrutiny.” (RELATED: Supreme Court Unanimously Sides With Woman Who Says She Lost Job For Not Being Gay)
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion to add that the Wisconsin Supreme Court violated the “church autonomy doctrine” by assuming a separation between Catholic Charities and the Diocese of Superior.
“Catholic Charities and its subentities are, from a religious perspective, a mere arm of the Diocese of Superior,” he wrote. “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.”
