(The Center Square) – Nineteen state attorneys general have joined Wisconsin’s Catholic Charities Bureau of Superior in challenging a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that the charity does primarily secular work and thus must pay into the state’s unemployment fund.
Catholic Charities appealed the Wisconsin court decision to the U.S. Supreme Court and the group of 19 state attorneys general filed an amicus brief in support of the group’s case.
“If any religious activity, no matter how deeply rooted in doctrine and practice, becomes secular the moment the nonreligious adopt it, then no religious exercise is safe from government regulation,” the attorneys general wrote.
The amicus brief was led by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and joined by Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia.
The Catholic Charities claim the Wisconsin ruling violates the First Amendment and it questions the Catholic church’s religious teachings.
“Catholic Charities Bureau answers Christ’s call to minister to the most vulnerable by caring for the poor, disabled, and elderly throughout the diocese and beyond,” said Bishop James Powers, Bishop of the Diocese of Superior. “We pray the Court recognizes that this vital work of improving the human condition lies at the heart of our duty as Catholics.”
Other briefs were filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, religious scholars, liberty law scholars and religious groups.
Non-profits that operate in Wisconsin for primarily religious purposes do not have to pay into unemployment in the state but the court ruled that the exemption does not apply to Catholic Charities because it serves everyone, not just Catholics.
“The power to define religion is the power to destroy it,” Yost said. “Our Constitution guards against government interference on religion, and few maneuvers are as intrusive as the government taking it upon itself to define religious practice.”
