MADISON (BP) — Wisconsin state leaders must follow a 9-0 Supreme Court ruling in favor of a charity group’s First Amendment rights instead of attempting to circumvent the decision, said Becket Fund in a court filing this week.
One day after Becket asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Oct. 20 to stop delaying the fulfillment of the unanimous SCOTUS decision last June, Wisconsin’s attorney general filed his own brief arguing for the elimination of the tax exemption in question.
The June decision stated that Catholic Charities Bureau (CCB) and its subsidies, indeed, are a religious group and should be allowed to enroll in an unemployment pay program separate from that offered by the state. State officials had argued that CCB was not religious because it only provided social services such as soup kitchens, something secular groups do, and does not require employees to be Catholic nor offer religious training, proselytize or attempt to promote the Catholic faith.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul and two assistants argued in the name of equal treatment, using the example that a statute exempting men from paying Social Security and Medicare would be discriminatory for women. He suggested two options: either expanding the tax exemption or eliminating it, favoring the latter.
The Supreme Court decision resolved liability, Kaul wrote, but “did not prescribe a particular remedy.”
Eric Rassbach, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, called the attorney general’s original argument as well as the one he filed on Monday “absurd.”
“That’s why the Supreme Court unanimously rejected Wisconsin’s arguments and protected Catholic Charities,” he said. “The state should take the L and move on.”
The Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission joined other religious denominations earlier this year in an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to rule in favor of Catholic Charities. Executive Vice President and Chief of Staff Miles Mullin called out state leaders, saying their move was “quite shocking.”
“At a time when the justices rarely all agree, one would think the response to a unanimous ruling would be acknowledgment of a settled matter,” he said. “Instead, government leaders in Wisconsin are going back to the drawing board to figure out how to get their way.
“By signaling that they would rather see the benefit taken away from every religious group than see Catholic Charities receive it, they remind us of a third grader who, if he cannot have his way, takes his ball and goes home. The citizens of Wisconsin deserve a government that looks to defend their First Amendment rights at every opportunity, not one that actively seeks to limit them.”
Becket said the state’s position would tread on the First Amendment rights of not only Christian groups, but synagogues, mosques and other ministries.
“Wisconsin’s bald-faced defiance of the Supreme Court is nothing short of remarkable,” said Rassbach. “Rather than accepting defeat, the state is now trying to punish all religious groups in Wisconsin, not just Catholic Charities. Doubling down on excluding religious people makes a mockery of both our legal system and religious freedom.”
(EDITOR’S NOTE — Scott Barkley is chief national correspondent for Baptist Press.)
