High court keeps judges out of church job disputes

[trottigy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/us/supreme-court-recognizes-religious-exception-to-job-discrimination-laws.html

“This decision,” he said in a statement, “makes resoundingly clear the historical and constitutional importance of keeping internal church affairs off limits to the government — because whoever chooses the minister chooses the message.”

Chief Justice Roberts devoted several pages of his opinion to a history of religious freedom in Britain and the United States, concluding that an animating principle behind the First Amendment’s religious liberty clauses was to prohibit government interference in the internal affairs of religious groups generally and in their selection of their leaders in particular.

Reason for the Judicial action

Side 1-

Ms. Perich said she was fired for pursuing an employment-discrimination claim based on a disability, narcolepsy.

Side 2-

She was fired, the school said, for violating religious doctrine by pursuing litigation rather than trying to resolve her dispute within the church.

The Supreme Court sided with the church