(The Center Square) – Catholic Charities are to be granted religious exemption to unemployment taxes, the Wisconsin Supreme Courtruled Monday.
Attorney General Josh Kaul had asked the court to eliminate the exemption after the U.S. Supeme Court had ruled in June that Catholic Charities qualified.
Nineteen state attorneys general had supported the Catholic Charities case in a letter before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled.
Monday’s order noted the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled on the case and sent further action on the case back to the Wisconsin bench to make further rulings that were consistent with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
Therefore, it wrote, Catholic Charities “is eligible for the religious purposes exemption to unemployment taxation” and the Wisconsin Supreme Court ordered the Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission to make Catholic Charities eligible for the exemption.
“After decades of fighting for a statutorily available religious exemption, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has affirmed the religious liberty of the Diocese of Superior Catholic Charities Bureau,” David Earleywine, Wisconsin Catholic Conference Associate Director for Education & Religious Liberty, said in a statement. “As the WCC has previously stated, true Catholic charity is inherently religious and cannot be reduced to another secular social service.”
