The Supreme Court today granted review in a pivotal case that will decide which religious organizational activities courts should deem “religious.” RFI joined a multifaith brief urging the Court to accept the case.

In this case, Catholic Charities Bureau (CCB) sought a religious exemption from Wisconsin’s unemployment compensation system so that it could join the Wisconsin Bishop’s unemployment compensation plan.

Under Wisconsin law, any non-profit “operated primarily for religious purposes” qualifies for this exemption. But the state court of appeals held that CCB did not qualify because serving the poor was secular, not religious.

CCB appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and RFI joined a brief at that stage as well. That court upheld the decision of the lower court, deciding that CCB is not operated primarily for religious purposes, which we also wrote about at the time. CCB, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. Today the Court agreed to do so.

In the brief joined by RFI’s Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team along with institutions representing major Christian denominations, we argued that by imposing the state’s distorted view of what it means to be religious, the state prescribed a single form of religious orthodoxy in violation of the Constitution’s Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses.

Read our brief filed in the Supreme Court here.