What To Know About 3 Religious Liberty Cases Before SCOTUS

This month could be historic for the future of religious liberty in America as the Supreme Court will be hearing three important cases this month.

The first case, which was heard earlier this month, deals with whether a Catholic social service charity in Wisconsin is eligible to receive a tax exemption like other faith-based non-profit organizations.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court had ruled against the charity, stating that exemptions allowing religious organizations to avoid paying Wisconsin’s unemployment tax did not apply to the Catholic charitable organization because its operations to provide help to elderly, low-income, and disabled people were deemed to be secular in nature even though their faith serves as the motivation for providing such services.

During the oral arguments, the justices were seemingly sympathetic towards the charity’s case, and we can be hopeful that they will rule in their favor. An adverse ruling could negatively impact the work of other faith-based service organizations.

The second case concerns the constitutionality of whether or not a Catholic charter school should be allowed to open in Oklahoma. The court is reviewing an Oklahoma Supreme Court decision that overturned a state board’s decision to approve the school’s application submitted by a local archdiocese. The state Supreme Court had ruled that charter schools must be public schools and be secular in nature.

Finally, the third case considers whether Maryland parents with religious objections to curriculum featuring sexual material can withdraw their children from those classes – a classic case of religious conscience.

Three sets of parents sued the Montgomery County Board of Education, alleging their First Amendment and due process rights were violated after it announced the district would no longer allowed opt-outs from or provide parents notice of a language arts curriculum that included the reading and discussion of storybooks featuring LGBT characters.

Weaponizing ‘Separation of Church and State’

Each of these cases seeks to return our nation to the original intent of religious liberty in our U.S. Constitution — an intent that was misconstrued and misinterpreted by Justice Hugo Black in his majority opinion in Eversen v. Board of Education in 1947.

It was in this case that Black inserted the phrase, “wall of separation of church and state,” words found nowhere in the U.S. Constitution but instead from a letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists in 1802.

The irony is that those who oppose any religious expression or rights of conscience for religious believers have also distorted Jefferson’s words to advance their anti-faith agenda. Up until Black’s opinion, the court had interpreted the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to support and encourage religious belief.  

Unfortunately, with Black’s words, the damage was done. For the next generation, the Supreme Court, encouraged by groups such as the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, wielded Black’s words like a legal wrecking ball to any public expression of religious faith.

So many of our current cultural issues and rapidly deteriorating public discourse is the result of the fundamental misunderstanding and misconstruing by previous Supreme Courts after Black’s opinion.

By restoring religious liberty to its rightful place, where people can openly practice their faith, regardless of what it may be, and the government encourages, but not endorses a certain faith, can we return to the original intent of our Founding Fathers.

And if we do so, I am confident that we can come together again as a nation that respects all faiths instead of being a nation that finds itself increasingly at war with itself, pitting one group against another. Faith is meant to unite us and not divide us. Hopefully, the court will affirm this, and we can once again be the nation that the founding fathers envisioned: one nation under God with liberty and justice for all.