In the first day of its new term, the Supreme Court has declined to review two decisions involving religion, meaning that the decisions of the lower courts stand.
In one case, a variety of religious groups challenged New York’s Women’s Health and Wellness Act, which required employers to provide birth-control coverage (as well as breast cancer screening and other female-centric health care) in its prescription and health plans. The only exceptions were churches and religious groups whose primary purpose was religious. Catholic Charities, among other groups, sued to invalidate the law, but the New York Court of Appeals (the state’s highest court) ruled that because Catholic Charities’ function was not primarily religious, and hired people who were not Catholic and therefore did not ostensibly share the anti-contraceptive beliefs of the Catholic Church, they were not covered by the exception and had to comply with the law.
The New York law contains an exemption for churches, seminaries and other institutions with a mainly religious mission that primarily serve followers of that religion. Catholic Charities and the other groups sought the exemption, but they hire and serve people of different faiths.
New York’s highest court ruled last year that the groups had to comply with the law. The 6-0 decision by the state Court of Appeals hinged on the determination that the groups are essentially social service agencies, not churches.
The Court has rejected a challenge to a similar law in California in the past. The Supreme Court will often not disturb cases which come up through the state courts if they turn on questions of state, rather than federal, constitutional law (though I haven’t yet read this decision, so I don’t know if that’s what it was based on) Scott has more.
In the other, the Court let stand a decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals holding that public libraries were entitled to deny evangelical groups’ requests to hold religious services in the public library.
In the library case, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco had ruled that public libraries can block religious groups like the Faith Center Church Evangelistic Ministries from worshipping in public meeting rooms.
The Contra Costa library system in the San Francisco Bay area allows groups to use its facilities for educational, cultural and community-related programs.
“Although religious worship is an important institution in any community, we disagree that anything remotely community-related must therefore be granted access to the Antioch Library meeting room,” the appeals court concluded in a 2-1 decision.
Allowing worship services would amount to having taxpayers subsidize religious exercises, argued the Contra Costa County, Calif., Library Board, which operated the facility in Antioch, Calif.
There’s always a chance that the Court may review a case like this later, if other Circuits start coming out the other way, but for now, this is the law in the Ninth Circuit, which covers California, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Hawaii, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Which is a nice victory for secularism.