Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. Amos
The Supreme Court ruled that letting religious organizations hire and fire based on religion for all of their activities, even nonprofit ones with no religious content, does not violate the Constitution's ban on government establishment of religion.
The decision means a maintenance worker fired from a church-run gymnasium for failing to qualify as a full church member had no claim under federal job-discrimination law, and it upholds Congress's broad religious-employer exemption from that law.
“A law is not unconstitutional simply because it allows churches to advance religion, which is their very purpose.”
The Court's explanation for why the religious exemption does not unconstitutionally advance religion.
How it got here: A federal district court in Utah ruled the exemption unconstitutional as applied to secular activities and ordered the worker reinstated; the case reached the Supreme Court by direct appeal because a federal law had been struck down.
The Case in Depth
What happened
A maintenance worker at a nonprofit gymnasium run by entities connected to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was fired after 16 years because he could not obtain a "temple recommend," a certificate showing he met church membership standards. He and others sued, arguing that a federal law letting religious groups discriminate based on religion in all their activities — not just religious ones — violated the separation of church and state when applied to a secular job like his.
The question before the Court
Could a church-run nonprofit gym fire a maintenance worker for not qualifying as a full church member, without violating the separation of church and state?
The Court's answer
No — the Supreme Court ruled that Congress could let religious organizations discriminate based on religion even in nonreligious jobs, without violating the Establishment Clause. The Court reasoned that Congress had a legitimate secular purpose: sparing religious groups from having to guess, under threat of lawsuits, which of their activities a court might later call religious. Because it was the church, not the government, that made the worker's religious status a condition of his job, the government could not be said to be "advancing" religion just by stepping back and letting the church make that call.
The ruling applies specifically to nonprofit activities of religious employers, like the church-run gymnasium here. Several justices who agreed with the outcome wrote separately to stress that the same exemption might raise different, unresolved questions if applied to a religious organization's for-profit commercial ventures.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Religious organizations running nonprofit operations — schools, hospitals, gyms, charities — can continue requiring staff, even in nonreligious jobs like maintenance or clerical work, to meet religious membership standards without facing federal discrimination suits. Employees at these nonprofits who don't meet a church's religious criteria have no recourse under Title VII, even if their job itself has nothing to do with religious practice.
What changes now
The Supreme Court's ruling is a final decision on the merits, reversing the district court and sending the case back for further proceedings consistent with the opinion, meaning the worker's discrimination claim cannot proceed. The Court left open whether the same exemption would be constitutional if applied to a religious organization's for-profit commercial ventures rather than nonprofit ones, an issue several concurring justices flagged as unresolved.
What this does not decide
The Court's holding covers only nonprofit activities of religious employers; several concurring justices emphasized that whether the same exemption would be constitutional for a religious organization's profit-making commercial activities remains an open question not decided here.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Brennan
Justice Brennan agreed with the outcome but only because the case involved a nonprofit activity. He argued that, ideally, courts should decide case-by-case whether an activity is religious or secular, but that approach would excessively entangle government with religion and risk chilling churches from admitting an activity is religious for fear of losing the exemption. He would limit the automatic exemption to nonprofit activities, leaving for-profit activities to a different analysis.
Concurrence — Justice Blackmun
Justice Blackmun concurred in the judgment for the reasons given in Justice O'Connor's opinion, agreeing that the majority's distinction between government 'advancing' religion and merely 'allowing' religion to advance itself obscures more than it clarifies, and agreeing that the constitutionality of the exemption as applied to for-profit religious activities remains an open question.
Concurrence — Justice O'Connor
“Almost any government benefit to religion could be recharacterized as simply “allowing” a religion to better advance itself, unless perhaps it involved actual proselytization by government agents.”O'Connor's objection that the majority's advancing-versus-allowing distinction is too easily manipulated.
Justice O'Connor argued the majority's reasoning was flawed because almost any government benefit to religion could be recast as merely 'allowing' religion to advance itself, making the effects test meaningless. She proposed asking instead whether the government's purpose is to endorse religion and whether an objective observer would perceive endorsement, and stressed this framework leaves the for-profit question open.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied the three-part Lemon test, which asks whether a law has a secular purpose, whether its main effect advances or inhibits religion, and whether it creates excessive government entanglement with religion.
- On purpose, the Court found Congress had a legitimate secular goal: reducing the burden on religious groups of having courts decide, case by case and under threat of liability, which of their activities count as religious.
- On effect, the Court reasoned that a law does not unconstitutionally 'advance' religion merely by freeing a church to advance its own mission through its own resources; the government must itself be doing the advancing, through sponsorship or direct involvement, for the effect to be unconstitutional.
- The Court found no evidence that the church's ability to spread its beliefs through the gymnasium had grown since the exemption was expanded, and it was the church, not the government, that required the worker to meet religious standards.
- Applying rational-basis review rather than strict scrutiny to the worker's equal-protection argument, the Court found the exemption reasonably related to the legitimate goal of keeping government out of religious organizations' internal decisions.
- The Court concluded the exemption also reduces entanglement between church and state rather than increasing it, because it lets religious organizations decide these matters themselves instead of having courts probe their doctrines.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Lemon v. Kurtzman (403 U. S. 602)
The Court applied Lemon's three-part test to uphold the religious-employer exemption rather than replacing it.
Distinguishes Larson v. Valente (456 U. S. 228)
The Court said Larson's strict scrutiny applies only to laws favoring some religions over others, not this neutral exemption.
Distinguishes Estate of Thornton v. Caldor, Inc. (472 U. S. 703)
The Court said this case differs because the church, not a government mandate, imposed the religious requirement on the worker.