The U.S. Supreme Court on June 5 ruled unanimously that Wisconsin violated the First Amendment by not granting a Catholic charity an exemption from paying unemployment tax.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the 9–0 opinion in Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission.
Wisconsin law excuses religious organizations that are “operated, supervised, controlled, or principally supported by a church or convention or association of churches” from paying state unemployment tax.
The petitioner, Catholic Charities, argued that it is unconstitutional to allow the state to decide what work is religious in nature.
“The First Amendment mandates government neutrality between religions and subjects any state-sponsored denominational preference to strict scrutiny. The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s application of [the state statute] imposed a denominational preference by differentiating between religions based on theological lines. Because the law’s application does not survive strict scrutiny, it cannot stand,” the justice wrote….