In 2016, the Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission ruled that the Catholic Charities Bureau is ineligible for an unemployment tax exemption. The state permits exemptions for organizations “operated primarily for religious purposes,” yet the Commission ultimately determined that Catholic Charities serves no “religious purpose” when it ministers to the poor, the elderly, and the infirm. Ignoring common sense, the Commission decided that Catholic Charities’ work is secular (and thus, non-exempt) because its activities resemble those of secular charities.
On March 31, the Commission will come before the U.S. Supreme Court to explain why it has any business setting thresholds of religiosity that a religious organization must satisfy (Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission). It maintains that it had to examine Catholic Charities’ work for “distinctively religious” acts to preserve objectivity in an inquiry that it must apply across religious claims. In truth, the Commission’s approach betrays a secular bias and a subordination of religion to the state—both impermissible under the First Amendment—that the Supreme Court ought to reject.
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