AU warns Supreme Court decision could undermine social safety net

Americans United for Separation of Church and State President and CEO Rachel Laser issued the following statement in response to today’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission:

Supreme Court favored employers over protections for workers

“In a narrow decision, the U.S. Supreme Court favored the purported religion of companies and organizations over protections for individual workers. Unemployment insurance is a critical protection for hard-working Americans who lose their jobs through no fault of their own. Today’s decision could be used to hamstring courts’ ability to ensure that employers must contribute to this safety net when they are not qualified for the limited religious exemptions under the law.

“This case continues a dangerous trend we’ve seen from Christian Nationalist legal outfits for more than a decade now: From health care access to retirement benefits to antidiscrimination protections and now unemployment insurance, they argue that companies and organizations can simply claim a religious motive in order to sidestep worker protections. If these religious extremists succeed, the mere invocation of religious beliefs will erase important social safety nets and civil rights protections for workers. Americans United will continue to unite the religious and nonreligious to fight for workers’ rights.”

AU, joined by religious organizations, had filed brief with Supreme Court

Americans United, joined by seven religious and civil-rights organizations, filed an amicus brief in the case to remind the court of the country’s multi-century tradition of laws and courts relying on objective factors to determine whether entities qualify for religious exemptions.

The brief warned that if the U.S. Supreme Court adopted the rationale of Catholic Charities and its lawyers at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, any entity that claims a religious motivation could exempt itself from laws protecting employees, our civil rights, and much more – all with no objective review from courts.